Tide Goes….Basic
Back in February (“BB” – before blogging), I sent around an article on P&G, ‘P&G, Others Are Confident Higher Prices Will Stick’. The takeaway was that, despite how bad the recession is, rather than lowering prices, P&G (and others) planned to emphasize the extra benefits they say make their premium-priced products worth the money.
In ads for its Charmin brand, P&G focused on the toilet paper’s durability, saying that means users require fewer sheets. It also advertised that Tide detergent contains more cleaning agents than bargain brands and that Olay skin cream outperforms products costing hundreds of dollars.
Full article here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123508966388628145.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us
Today, “under assault by penny-pinching consumers, [P&G] has quietly rolled out a version of Tide detergent that the company freely admits isn’t “new and improved.”
“For P&G, Tide Basic is one of the company’s most daring marketing moves to date. ‘This product brings the enormous risk of tarnishing years of brand loyalty and emotional connections because shoppers start asking, ‘Why have I been spending all this money all along?’”
Working at a retailer, I have relationships with the major CPGs, and I know how passionate and tied to their brands they are and what a difficult decsion this must have been. Interesting move…..the full article is long, so I didnt paste it in. Its from the WSJ, which a lot of people cant access so if you’re really dying to read it….just let me know! (i’m not expecting many requests :)
Here is the link to the story http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124946926161107433.html
