Father-daughter duo accuses Cetaphil of “stealing” their video for Super Bowl ad

A father and daughter duo have taken to TikTok to accuse skincare company Cetaphil of “stealing” their video after the company airs a new commercial during the 2024 Super Bowl.

Skincare company Cetaphil was one of many companies to spend $7 million to have their commercial air for 30 seconds during the iconic Super Bowl on February 11.

The advert showed a daughter ignoring her dad and his interest in football, before suddenly gaining an interest when “the most famous fan” is referenced on the TV. The ad is hinting at Taylor Swift being at the games in recent months, making thousands of women watch the games for the first time with the men in their lives.

The Cetaphil ad ends with a message: “This season, dads and daughters found a new way to connect. Let’s celebrate that GAME TIME glow.”

Although the advert was mainly met with praise, not everyone is happy with the company. Among the people who aren’t happy with the skincare company are Sharon Mbabazi and her stepdad, who claim that the company stole their story for the commercial.

TikToker accuses Cetaphil of stealing her video

“When Cetaphil’s Super Bowl commercial copies your TikToks,” Mbabazi wrote in a text overlay of her recent video. She is seen reacting with her step-dad while the sound in the background is heard saying: “Wait, is this f**king play about us?” implying that the skincare brand stole ideas from Mbabazi’s videos.

In the original video, Mbabazi is sitting in her room and recording herself as she applies makeup to her face. Her stepfather walks into the room and reads statistics from a phone.

The TikToker explained the basis of her video in an overlay that read: “My stepdad has been updating me on Taylor and Travis every day since Sunday.”

“OK, ready?” he asked his stepdaughter.

“For?” she replied.

He then launched into his reasoning for coming into the room: “Since Taylor Swift showed up to Sunday’s Chiefs Bears game, 400% spike in Travis Kelce’s jersey sales. Kelce’s podcast now is number one overall on Apple. Kelce added 383,000 new Instagram followers. 24.3 million viewers watched the game, number one for the week. 63% jump in female viewers aged 18 to 49. Three times increase in the Chiefs’ searches on the web. And lastly, the Chiefs sold more tickets in a single day since the start of the season.”

“I love the morning news,” Mbabazi told the camera, chuckling again before the video cuts out.

Mbabazi said in a video about Cetaphil’s commercial that she wasn’t happy that the company had featured a “mixed race girl” and a white father in the video or that they were bonding over Taylor Swift, or that the girl was applying makeup to her face like she’d done — without acknowledging or giving credit to her video.

The TikToker mentioned that she was willing to believe the video was a coincidence until she saw the dad in the commercial take a bit of his kid’s beauty cream and apply it under his eyes as her own stepdad did in their content.

Her stepfather told viewers: “My daughter made the content that you stole. I don’t know if you paid somebody, your marketing department, if you’ve hired a company to make the commercial, all’s they did, bar for bar, took my daughter’s content…”

“Swiftie nation: do your thing,” he said. “Taylor Swift, call them out on it, Travis, call them out, what’s right is what’s right.”

Cetaphil has yet to comment on the accusations.