Ocean Spray Is Getting Weird For The Holidays
Is it love? Is it hate? Why do I keep watching this commercial?
I've watched Ocean Spray's new Thanksgiving ad about a million times. In it, a family of silent, beige-wearing people are involuntarily taken over by the urge to wiggle after canned cranberry sauce jiggles in front of them.
After I watched it, I felt...weird? The song was surprisingly infectious, but also those people looked like they had been infected—at points in a bad way. I wanted to watch it again.
What is happening?
Reactions to Ocean Spray’s infectious new commercial
Reddit is usually a good place to see people debate life's biggest questions, so I checked there to see if anyone was talking about the commercial, and of course, they were, especially after it played during the World Series last week. Some people called the ad creepy and confusing. Others said they thought it was an ad for fresh cranberry sauce. I'm not sure why. At least one Reddit user liked it, saying, "The jiggle is dope, embrace the jiggle."
On YouTube, people were a lot more positive, saying it's the funniest commercial they've ever seen, calling it bizarre but in a good way, and my personal favorite, "I always wondered what the holidays are like for the Wacky Wavy Inflatable Tube Guy that you see outside of grand openings." I will now probably hear the song from this commercial anytime I see one of those wavy guys bouncing outside a car dealership. #Synergy.
The song from the commercial has extended its tendrils onto TikTok, with some help from Ocean Spray, which launched a campaign on TikTok with the hashtag #JiggleWithUs. They partnered with JoJo Siwa, who released an admittedly charming TikTok, which I've also watched a lot of times.
The hashtag #JiggleWithUs has 5.7 million views so far. There's a mix of people who are clearly in Ocean Spray offices, influencers who have tagged their videos as paid partnerships, and people who are just getting in on the fun.
Among my favorites: shuffle dancer Mary Grace with her baby, River, who, toward the end flashes a smile that makes it easy to ignore the fact there's a jiggling can-shaped blob of cranberry sauce underneath him.
This one features a cat doing the wiggle jiggle.
And this group of kids jiggling is just cute enough that I might keep looking these up. I still can't decide if I love or hate this song, but at least thanks to TikTok I continue to be charmed.