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Purple Cow
Case Study: What Should Tide Do
Tide is arguably the best laundry detergent in history.
Every year, Procter & Gamble invests millions of dollars
and pays a top-flight team of chemists to push the performance
of Tide further and further.
Is that the right thing to do
Tide succeeded early on because of a mixture of good
TV ads, very good distribution, and a great product. As
the TV-industrial complex crumbled, though, the ads
mattered less and less. Now, with the ascension of Wal-
Mart, the distribution is more crucial than ever. One
chain of stores accounts for a third of Tide’s sales. Without
Wal-Mart, Tide is dead.
So what should P&G do Are they likely to come up with
a true innovation, a remarkable breakthrough that even
casual detergent buyers notice Or are the incremental
improvements largely a carryover from a different time, a
time when people actually cared about their laundry
Orthodox Purple Cow thinking would have P&G take
the profits while they’re still there. Cut research spending,
raise the price as much as is practical, and put the incremental
profits into the creation of ever more radical and
interesting new products. If the current R&D isn’t likely to
generate a noteworthy payoff, what’s the point
If a product’s future is unlikely to be remarkable
– if you can’t imagine a future in which people
are once again fascinated by your product – it’s
time to realize that the game has changed. Instead
of investing in a dying product, take profits and
reinvest them in building something new.
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