Fake Tide Commercial Mocks Antigay Religious Right

A commercial created on spec to lure Tide is already proving popular on the Web, reportsAdWeek, which called out the ad as fake.

The magazine reports that the commercial is actually spec work from Tiny Giant director Mark Nickelsburg. If the company that makes Tide laundry detergent were to pick up the ad, it could capitalize on the religious right's antigay fervor following the Supreme Court ruling in favor of marriage equality.

The fake commercial for Tide-to-Go pokes fun at a woman who resembles Kentucky clerk Kim Davis and other "religious liberty" zealots who stand in the way of equality. And it fooled a number of outlets (including this one) into reporting it as a real Procter & Gamble ad.

Procter & Gamble announced its support of marriage equality in late 2014, after a federal court upheld a same-sex marriage ban in the company's home state of Ohio. The corporation joined several other large companies in filing an amicus brief supporting marriage equality in that case.

P&G has been designated one of the Best Places to Work by the Human Rights Campaign and has a perfect score on the group's Corporate Equality Index. LGBT labor organization Pride at Work recently called on labor unions to cease funding the Human Rights Campaign due to problems with the annual report. P@W alleges that the report continues to grade large corporations like Walmart highly even when the chain and other companies are the target of anti-LGBT discrimination lawsuits, or have been found guilty of discrimination by the National Labor Relations Board.

Watch the spec commercial below as Tide cleans up the anti-marriage equality opposition.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the commercial as produced by Tide instead of the filmmaker.