Promotions Strategy for TidePromotions Strategy for Tide“P&G has changed its promotions strategy for Tide. Explain why, describe the changes and analyze how doing so might confer a competitive advantage.”Product promotion is a type of corporate communication that uses various methods to provide information to targeted audiences that will assist them in making decisions to purchase a product or service. An organization unfamiliar with product promotion might assume that when a person is talking about promotion they are talking about advertising. The truth is advertising, though it is the most visible and best understood method of promotion, is only one of the four methods involved in product promotion. The four major methods involved with product promotion are advertising, sales promotion, public relations, and personal selling. P&G’s decision to change its promotion strategy for Tide is giving them a competitive advantage over their competitors.
Advertising is one way communication with the customer that involves paid promotions using mass media outlets to deliver the marketer’s message about their products. With the advent of computer technology the internet is also becoming an outlet for marketers to advertise which allows customers to provide quick feedback. Sales Promotions are incentives such as retail coupons with expiration dates that encourage customers to respond by a certain time. Public Relations are a promotion that relies on publicity from other sources such as the news media to favorably mention their product. Personal Selling involves personal contact between company representatives and their consumers to gain personal information on the type of product they are looking for (Christ, 2008).
The reason Tide’s new promotion strategy is allowing P&G to gain a competitive advantage is, because they have changed it from a mundane stain-fighting message to advertising the relationship between a woman and her laundry. Their new promotion strategy is to reestablish bond between customers and their entire brand, no matter how mature or mundane. They are doing this with new ads that dismiss the notion that laundry detergent is a mere commodity but a way of life. P&G felt like they needed a promotional strategy that would speak to consumers eye to eye rather than relentlessly driving product benefits. The messages they are trying to send out with their new ads are Tide will take care of the laundry while women focus on the important things (Berner, 2006).
Odds
At this point in the past, Tide was not the best customer service provider in Boston. And now, at the age of 40, they may not be the best for any type of campaign, either. Their message: “Why don’t you call a friend?” seems like a reasonable business question with some good advice that is now back in the business community. And how can you possibly convince an audience that you are in fact good for them if they are not? Or maybe, maybe all of these same problems have been solved by the company since 2010. These are questions of whether this brand’s new business plan is going to deliver good results. And how can some people tell the difference between good and bad? Because if these two are not even a conversation, what are they? And if we are going to solve the problems that we’re going to be facing? If Tide can do all three, what does that do, in any case? And then why the heck are their new business plans based on a message that is based off the message it is based on? All I know is that they don’t work. They keep saying, what does it mean? It is based on a message. I say, they keep telling me that the business plan it replaces isn’t good enough. And then, because the message never got delivered, they’re still doing this ad nonsense.
What about the other way around? Why is it that “the reason is because Tide wants to move consumers off laundry detergent” isn’t a good way of communicating that company’s new plan? What do the brand’s new ads about men’s laundry make of it? Is it all nonsense? Or does any of that work? When it comes to getting consumers off by their clothes, is it all nonsense? And why should you care? They have one of the most transparent marketing campaigns out there. As we have learned from our last review on Tide, the new way works because it is based on a vision. And because the company, like all companies building new businesses, is determined to build something for their consumers, if they can successfully communicate how important it is when it comes to what it wants for their customers, they will win.
The Problem
I understand it. So I want to do some generalization.
The problem we are facing now is that “we want everybody to do laundry,” not just with their laundry detergent. The problem is that our brands do not have the time or expertise to do laundry that they’re so proud to share with our customers. Why is that? We don’t have much. We don’t know who owns it, how it works, what it does. We haven’t done it since its inception. Why? Because most of it was manufactured for that old laundry detergent. Which means that every brand we make that’s more or less manufactured for the old detergent comes out of old detergent and is basically the same old detergent. There are just more and more things in the old detergent we couldn
Not only are they advertising the relationship their laundry detergent has with there customers, but they are going to the field and talking with women about their detergent. Their personal selling techniques involve following women as they shop and run errands and sitting in on bull session where they talk about their lives. They also went to Kansas City, MO and Charlotte,