Advertising / Raid Insecticide Campaign

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A long-running Advertising Campaign that ran from 1956 to 2016 for the Raid insecticide line.

The shtick is simple—a few insects or other vermin enter a household, planning to live off of its members parasitically. Then, an invisible hand sprays them with Raid insecticide until they no longer exist. Cue the campaign's tagline. Early ads were created by Tex Avery, though in 1963 illustrator Don Pegler gave the bugs the redesign they would keep for decades after.

As the company started exporting its products internationally, the ads have been translated into other languages, such as Spanish. However, the campaign is headed in specific countries under different brand names, with Baygon^note bought from Bayer in 2003 in Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia, All Out^note which replaced Raid after SC Johnson bought out Karamchand Appliances, then-owners of the All Out brand in India, Paral^note until it was folded into Raid as part of SC Johnson's plan to harmonize brands in Germany, Ridsect^note after it was bought by SC Johnson in 2009 in Malaysia and Singapore, and F-Killer in South Korea.

Tropes:

• Actor Allusion: A commercial from The '60s has the insects say they were sent by Bugsy—doubling both as a pun for bugs and Bugs Bunny's name. This is made evident by the fact the speaking insect is voiced by Mel Blanc.
• All-Natural Snake Oil:
  • In Australia, there is a commercial for Raid bug spray, specifically the Raid Earth Options spray that claims that mums will like it 'cause it's all-natural. As if that makes the poison any better.
  • Something similar can be found in the EarthBlends line, which is shilled as "using the power of Earth and science" as its formula is derived from the chrysanthemum flower.
  • This Philippine ad for Raid Max with Limoncel, not only shows a bunch of mosquitoes investigating a crime scene where the subject allegedly died of natural causes despite the situation looking like he died from being sprayed with inseecticide, but the ad vaguely claims the "Limoncel" ingredient was "an ingredient extracted from nature".
• Animate Inanimate Object: Some old commercials for Raid House & Garden depict an entire house coughing when the housewife uses Brand X insecticide, but letting a sigh of relief when she uses the advertised product.
  • This Argentine ad for Raid Casa y Jardín (House and Garden) starts with a housewife attempting to spray a Brand X insecticide, but this ends up making the house and the pantry cough, which is depicted as doors and windows opening and closing randomly. When she sprays the Raid insecticide later on, the house lets out a relieved sigh.
  • This Philippine ad (15-second version) also depicts a coughing house, but in stretch-and-squash animation; when it cuts to the inside, the background even warps when the housewife uses Brand X insecticide.
• Big Word Shout: "RAID?!!!" ([Boom!]) In other countries where the campaign is headed by an equivalent local brand, the bugs will scream the region's respective brand name instead.
• Birthday Episode: This Mexican ad for Raid Max starts with a cockroach celebrating his birthday with his two friends, who tell him to make three wishes. When he makes his three wishes and blows the candle, one of them asks the birthday roach if his wishes come true if he made them loudly. Cue the housewife opening the pantry and spraying a can of Raid Max on the trio.
• Brand Name Takeover: Raid has become synonymous with insecticide.
• The Cameo: An early commerical had the bug victim be played by Senor Wences, who naturally treated it like one of his comedy acts.
• Cheerful Funeral: This German ad for Paral's rebranding into Raid starts with several bugs taking a can of Paral in a hearse to symbolize it, all set to cheerful music as the bugs think they're safe. However, they panic when the male VO announces Raid will replace it, futilely running as a blue can of Raid falls on them and kills them all.
  Announcer: Paral leaves... but Raid comes.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: This 1999 Indian ad for Raid 3-Way Action Mats features mosquitoes grouped in three different colors according to the diseases they carry. Yellow ones carry malaria, blue ones carry dengue, and red ones carry filaria.
• Competing Product Potshot:
  • Earlier Australian ads had radio host John Laws extol the insecticide's effectiveness and subtly bringing up he switched to Raid since he was a spokesman for Mortein before then. Moreover, the slogan for these ads ("When you find a better thing, switch to it!") is a mockery of Mortein's earlier slogan ("When you're on a good thing, stick to it!").
  • This ad for Raid Concentrated Fogger, played out as a fictional TV show named Fogger Survivor Stories, has the female human host interview a cockroach who survived a Hot Shot fogger (with the tin next to him), soaking himself out while saying it was "more than half water", which was the reason he survived. However, the host lifts the Hot Shot tin to reveal the Raid fogger, which promptly kills all bugs in the stage since it has no water.
  • "Deathcathalon", an old ad for Quick-Kill Raid starts with roaches and ants training for the titular triathlon-esque event before showing a Side-by-Side Demonstration of the product against a Hot Shot product. The "team" sprayed with Raid dies while the one sprayed with Hot Shot survived, with the whole thing played out as the bugs pass several tests until a housewife comes over and sprays them with Raid.
• Creepy Cockroach: The commercials intend for the viewer to feel disgusted/creeped out that half-realistic cockroaches (complete with gangly voices and Card-Carrying Villain mannerisms) are entering the viewer's house. That way, a Raid spray can come and save the day by obliterating the bugs.
• Crowd Chant: This Indian ad for Raid (before being replaced by All Out following the buyout of Karamchand Appliances) has mosquitoes chant the name of the diseases they carry according to their colors: yellow for malaria, blue for dengue, and red for filaria.
• Death Cry Echo: Played for Laughs. The most iconic part of the ads is the pests screaming "RRRAAAAAAAIIIDDD!!!" before dying. As it's several vermin doing it, it has an echo effect.
• Defeat Equals Explosion:
  • In earlier ads, the bugs explode upon being sprayed with Raid. Later ads from 2016 onward have them go up in a puff of smoke instead.
  • This Hong Kong ad for cockroach spray averts this trope; while it depicts cartoony cockroaches in a style reminiscent of old Raid ads around the world, they only drop dead without exploding until the end, where a cockroach is blown up with a falling Raid logo.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: This Raid Ant & Roach Killer ad starts with the POV of the cockroach talking to a housewife in a way reminiscent of an abusive husband. Moreover, when the woman takes the Raid can and aims it at him and his fellow roaches, he folds and says he's going to change, but the woman has none of it and sprays the cockroaches.
• Drowning My Sorrows: This Argentine ad shows a mosquito at a bar drinking cheap insecticide (as a stand-in for alcohol). When he asked for something strong, the bartender and another mosquito scream "RAAAAAIID!" at a can of Raid. However, he was too drunk to notice the danger until the end, where he encounters said can and makes the same request, which it grants.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: One early commercial has a bug attempting to warn others about Raid by using stock footage of a previous commercial. After he does so, the can of Raid jumps out from the screen and sprays him.
• Homogenous Multinational Ad Campaign: Most international Raid commercials use the original graphics with local voice actors translating the lines to each country's language. The Talking Pests don't vary nor does the basic shtick of the ad.
• Joe Sent Me: An animated Raid commercial from The '60s features a speakeasy for insects. One such insect approaches the door, knocks, and says "Eh, Bugsy sent me."
• Killed Mid-Sentence: In this Argentine ad for the new formula of Raid Mata Moscas y Mosquitos, the blue Raid tin is sprayed at a mosquito, killing him before he could even scream "RAID!".
• Living Clothes: This Romanian ad for Raid Mothproofer starts with a screaming red sweater running around as a swarm of hungry moths chased it around. This Argentine ad for the moth killer spray adds in a pair of jeans chased around by mothballs and coughing from the naphthalene smell.
• Lock-and-Load Montage: This Argentine ad for Raid 30 Noches features shots of the device being equipped and plugged as a mosquito flies around the house seeking for victims, set to gun cocking sounds.
• Lured into a Trap: The yellowjackets in the Raid Disposable Yellow Jacket Trap ads depict them entering the titular trap thinking it's a swing hangout. However, when one rightly points out it's more like a final resting place before screaming "RRRAAAIID!" and exploding inside the trap.
• Millennium Bug: This video that shows two 1999 ads that shill Raid as "the Official Killer of the Millennium Bug" to cash in on the scare of that time.
• Million Mook March: This Middle Eastern ad for Raid Multi-Insect Killer starts with an army of cockroaches, spiders, ants, flies, and mosquitoes in a military parade while a cockroach commander oversees them. However, it turns into complete chaos when a housewife sprays the purple Raid tin over it, killing the entire army and finishing off the commander.
• Moth Menace: Just like other insects like cockroaches and mosquitoes, clothes moths are depicted as malevolent, even more so than the former two as they destroy clothing.
  • This Australian ad for Raid Mothproofer starts out inside a dark closed drawer as moths are caught eating the clothes in it.
  • This Chinese ad for Raid Mothproofer starts with a mother and daughter picking out clothes out of a drawer, with the latter lamenting that moths ate her favorite blouse. When the former uses the product, the moths trying to eat the clothes recognize they're screwed once they see the Raid logo behind them before dying in an explosion.
  • This Romanian ad for Raid Mothproofer starts with a screaming red sweater running away from a swarm of moths trying to eat it, with one of them even letting out an Evil Laugh in the chase.
• The Nose Knows: This ad for Raid Ant & Roach Killer with Country Fresh scent stars a big-nosed cockroach named Nose, who scouts the house to check for roach spray smell. While his fellow roaches gloat that Nose could smell it a block away, the spray's floral scent tricks him into thinking the coast is clear, which causes the death of all the roaches after realizing it.
• Oh, Crap!: The commercials for Raid pest killers have been doing this for years, with whatever Talking Pest in the commercial shouting "RAAAAAAAAAAID!" before dying.
• Proud Papa Passes Out the Cigars: This ad for Raid Flea Killer Plus depicts a flea maternity ward in a dog's fur, with the nurse flea announcing the father he has 200 boys and 200 girls (as a way of showing that fleas can each lay 400 eggs), complete with a close-up of the hatching eggs glaring at the viewer. Later on, the flea dad offers a cigar only to realize he's talking to a can of Raid, with him and the eggs exploding afterward.
• Rogues Gallery: Usually, the pests featured consist of flies, ants, mosquitoes, and cockroaches. Sometimes spiders and moths show up.
• The Scottish Trope: While the usual commercials have the bugs scream its name whenever they're sprayed before dying in an explosion, the song parody ads from Argentina take it to a ridiculous (and possibly nightmarish) degree. In said ads, the singer bug ends their song by mentioning the product, causing their fellow bugs to scream its name in terror before exploding.
• Screens Are Cameras: This Arabic ad for Raid Multi-Insect Killer combines this with Television Portal. A cockroach boss monitoring a SC Johnson research laboratory, but a scientist spots the scouting bugs and sprays Raid on them. However, she somehow sees the boss' HQ through the camera and sprays the area through his TV screen.
• Schmuck Bait: In earlier commercials, the sprayed Raid would often take the form of something related to the bugs it was killing, and the bugs would interact with it. Cue explosion.
• Side-by-Side Demonstration: In some ads, the homeowner first tries to kill the bugs with a blank spray insecticide. It doesn't even make the pests sneeze. Then, the same sequence is repeated with a Raid can, which easily erases the vermin from existence. Best shown in one Arabic commercial where the bugs laugh at the blank insecticide, but then panic whenever the homeowner threatens to use Raid.
• Starts with Their Funeral: This commercial for Raid EarthBlends starts with several ants and roaches attending the wake of a dead cockroach, with an ant commenting the lots of flowers around the deceased's casket. However, they die once learning said flowers are chrysanthemums, which are the advertised insecticide's main ingredient.
• Tagline:
  • From 1956 to 2016, "Raid Kills Bugs Dead" and "It smells good, but it really, kills them dead". In Australia, however, they had "When you find something this good, switch to it!" in ads starring radio host John Laws. Therefore, this was in response to Mortein's earlier slogan, "When you're on a good thing, stick to it!" and it helps that Laws was a spokesman for the latter brand before then.
  • In India, after SC Johnson bought out Group Karamchand and by extension, All Out to replace Raid, they kept the "Machcharon ka Yamraj" slogan (lit. "the Yamraj of Mosquitoes"), which the brand uses to this day.
• Talking Pest: Ads for the campaign tend to start with a Terrible Trio of cockroaches, mosquitoes, or other insects infiltrating a house or revealing themselves from the cracks or under the furniture. They then have some dialogue lines about how they are going to pester the humans or what great life is to live off of them. Then a Raid tin appears out of nowhere, sprays its contents onto them, and kills 'em dead.
• Tornado Move: This Thai ad for Baygon Lavender coil (Raid in the Cambodian version) starts with a swarm of mosquitoes assessing which house to attack. They pass up the house with the foul-smelling Brand X coil and attack the one that smells like lavender thinking it's defenseless. However, their plan is foiled when the mother uses the advertised coil, which blows the mosquitoes away with a purple tornado of lavender flowers.
• Villain Song: In Argentina, a series of four ads depicted bugs gloating about what they did in the house to the tune of popular songs. However, the songs had "Raid" as their very last word, causing the singer's fellow bugs to scream it in terror before dying in an explosion as expected of such ads.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Most, if not all, of their commercials feature talking cartoon bugs fleeing in terror before being mercilessly destroyed by a cheerful housewife with a spray can. One even had a cockroach maternity ward get wiped out this way.
• You Are Already Dead: In this Argentine ad for the new formula of Raid Mata Moscas y Mosquitos, a blue tin of Raid is sprayed at a mosquito, who only leaves his shadow flying around after dying. The narrator explains that it's now so fast that the mosquitos won't know what killed them. Eventually, the shadow explodes upon being reminded its body is dead.
• Zerg Rush: This Arabic ad for Raid Multi-Insect Killer has a cockroach and a mosquito commanding an army of both flying and crawling insects to attack said Raid tin. However, it's rendered moot when the tin sprays their way, eliminating the entire army.