An unlikely motif has emerged among this year’s crop of Super Bowl ads: bathroom humor.
Liquid I.V. has leaned fully into the bit. In the lead-up to the game, the hydration brand released two restroom-based teaser ads, one featuring K-pop vocalist EJAE belting Phil Collins’ 1984 power ballad “Against All Odds” from a bathroom stall. The other follows a janitor who pauses mid-cleaning, puzzled, as the same song echoes from an empty toilet.
The Super Bowl spot itself escalates the premise into a full-blown chorus: a montage of toilets, stalls and bathroom fixtures singing “Against All Odds” in unison. The joke lands on a visual gag—asking viewers to literally “take a look” at what’s in the bowl—as a way to prompt people to check their hydration levels.
Men’s grooming brand Manscaped was also in on the potty joke, with its Super Bowl pregame ad featuring anthropomorphic clumps of hair trapped in a shower drain, crooning a mournful ballad about their brief, doomed relationships with their former bodies.
Even cereal brands are heading to the bathroom. WK Kellogg Co‘s Raisin Bran’s ad talks about digestion and gut health—territory that’s long been difficult to advertise without veering into discomfort.
Taken together, the ads suggest that when it comes to wellness, digestion, and hydration, advertisers are increasingly willing to go where polite marketing once refused.
It’s not the first time advertisers have used the Super Bowl to make bathroom jokes. Last year, for instance, Angel Soft encouraged viewers to step away from the screen and take a bathroom break during its ad.
But this year, this immature and sometimes mildly gross form of humor is increasingly common. And according to creative leaders and brand marketers, that’s not an accident.
“You’re trying to break through the most noisy creative environment you’re ever going to be in, at a time when people’s attention spans are devastatingly short,” said Steve Slivka, chief creative officer at Manifest, who has worked on multiple Super Bowl ads for brands like Cadillac and Slim Jim. “At the same time, you’re navigating one of the most polarized cultural moments we’ve been in.”
And at some level, bathroom humor strikes that balance of being universally funny and understood. “As evolved as I think I am, there’s no defense for singing toilets,” Slivka continued. “You’re going to have a reaction to it. That’s just true.”
