Captain America: Brave New World Is Partnering With Tide, For Some Reason
Sometimes an Avenger has to get their, uh, clothes dirty.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has never been afraid of a product tie-in. Its heroes use Samsung devices, drive Audis and Acuras, and work at Baskin-Robbins and McDonald’s. Product integration has proven especially important for the upcoming Captain America: Brave New World, a movie that’s been delayed for so long that fans found out about a new costume design through a McDonald’s ad almost a year before its actual premiere.
Now, a brand is promoting a new product with a promotion that sounds more like a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show or The Room than a Marvel movie premiere. It’s the latest addition to a strange movie theater trend, one that may escalate in 2025.
There are two tie-ins in one in this Tide ad.
Tide has announced it will hold an exclusive 5D “Collateral Stain Screening” of Captain America: Brave New World, with the fifth D apparently being “stains.” “The audience will get to watch the movie all while experiencing collateral stains as if they were on the periphery of the action,” Tide said in a statement. “Captain America makes a grand entry and stirs up some dirt? The audience gets dirty too. Epic battles lead to muddy stains? Attendees will also get mud on their clothing.” Tide didn’t divulge too many specifics, but it sounds like viewers will get quite dirty, albeit while having free access to Tide products to clean themselves up with.
This all sounds rather ridiculous, but it’s only the latest in a trend of “immersive” screenings of new movies that add a live experiential element. They can probably be traced back to the release of Twisters on moving 4DX seats, sparking a TikTok trend where fans showed what they looked like before and after the screening. This was soon followed by screenings of Terrifier 3 that featured a creepy clown among the audience, and some Heretic screenings using the scent of blueberries during a key scene.
4DX turns movies into something more like a rollercoaster ride.
Immersive screenings like this are nothing new; theaters have been experimenting with ways to make movies more lifelike since the dawn of cinema. Some, like that newfangled technology known as “sound,” were lasting changes, while others, like Smell-O-Vision, were passing fads. It’s unlikely that Tide’s “Stain-O-Vision” will become a go-to marketing strategy, but it’s undeniably a unique experience. If gimmicks like scents and weird popcorn buckets help get people into theaters, then fair enough. Let’s just hope none of these exclusive stains involve hot coffee.
