In recent years, RC Cola Philippines veered down the path of the weird and the bizarre when it comes to their commercial ads. From that nightmare-inducing scene of the RC Cola-mom and glasses-child to the equally horror movie-esque band of dismembered arms and eyeball-lacking eyes, the soft drink brand has told us to expect the unexpected when it comes to its commercial ads.

However, their latest ad isn’t as bizarre as their previous ones, and we think they hit just the right level of weirdness this time.

The commercial ad

ICYMI, RC Cola Philippines released their newest advertisement last Friday on all their social media accounts, and it quickly went viral. As of writing , the Youtube video has garnered over 1.2 million views, while the Facebook post has over 3.4 million views, 97,000 reactions, and 4,300 comments.

The references: The Pinoy culture of pagbabalot

The commercial tells a simple story: a mother comes home from the birthday party of a kumare’s kid. From a big bag, she brings out food and a few other things for her husband and daughter. Typical Pinoy family culture, right?

Except RC Cola pushes the practice of pagbabalot sa handaan to an extreme. The mother brings home pots of food (as opposed to the usual tupperwares), a whole lechon, the clown, the performer, and even the birthday celebrant!

The references: ‘Bituing Walang Ningning’

At some point, Filipinos started joking about this culture of pagbabalot with the infamous lines from the song “Bituing Walang Ningning”, specifically “Balutin mo ako ng hiwaga ng iyong pagmamahal.”

The references: The Shawie impersonator

The singer behind this popular OPM song is, of course, none other than Sharon Cuneta, represented by the drag impersonator singing the song.

The references: Mega variant

Miss Sharon Cuneta is the Mega Star. RC Cola has the Mega Litro variant. Do we need to say more?

Netizens love it

All of these references circle back to the Pinoy culture of pagbabalot (or pag-shasharon), and netizens loved how RC Cola has pushed things to the extreme. It’s weird, but laugh-out-loud weird!

What I really love about that RC Cola ad is that the humor is so Filipino in a sense that the bigger joke is actually a Pinoy pop culture reference and would probably escape the humor of people unfamiliar with the joke.

Pasok na pasok na pasok sa target market.

— H Y R O (@heyrow) April 21, 2023

RC Cola has done it again! 😭🤣

I SAY NORMALIZED “Bring Home the whole Lechon!” 😭https://t.co/MF6MaKlkWk pic.twitter.com/PqNp8JIYeE

— mayari 🌻✨ (@kawaeiou) April 21, 2023

The ad agency of RC Cola (Gigil?) perfected its technique with that Bituin ad. Started off as clunky, their surreal (probably Thai-inspired) comedy meant to impress rather than sell.

But now they were able to cleanly incorporate effective sales hooks: birthday party food = cola.

— Jim Miraflor (@futilityfunc) April 23, 2023

Best thing nakita ko this weekend is yung RC Cola sharon ad 😂

— Loidita (@loidita) April 23, 2023

RC Cola, masyado nyo nmn ginalingan, sakto pantanggal umay sa madalas na musical ads
Kudos sa marketing team 👏

— rebel_alchemist (@rebelalchemist) April 22, 2023

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, and Youtube for the l8est entertaining, useful, and informative lists!