The company that already pretty much owns America's laundry rooms is trying to reinvent how you get soap into the washing machine. The Wall Street Journal reports that Procter & Gamble is rolling out Tide evo, a new "tile" version of its flagship detergent: thin, flexible 3-inch white squares, made of compressed detergent fibers, that look more like fabric pads than pods. They took more than a decade to develop and promise stronger cleaning in cold water and on synthetic fabrics. They also come in lighter paperboard packaging aimed at eco-conscious shoppers—and cost nearly twice as much per load as Tide pods at some retailers. So why mess with a brand winner that already holds close to 40% of the US laundry-detergent market (P&G claims 60% overall)?
The company's answer is self-disruption: It wants to upend its own products before rivals do. "If anybody's going to replace the soap business, it had better be Procter & Gamble," a P&G archivist quotes William Cooper Procter, grandson of one of the company's founders, as once proclaiming. "Our competition is working hard to do it, so we absolutely need to be the ones to get there first." Internal teams argued for years over everything from the tiles' scent to how curved the corners should be. Early reviews have flagged both the high price and the inability to tear tiles for smaller loads. Still, early sales suggest some consumers will fork over the money for it. For the inside story on how and why P&G gambled on Tide evo, read the full piece here.
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