Three scientists at a whiteboard in Ohio. Their assignment: make their company’s best-selling product obsolete.
Their employer? The same company.
That was P&G in 2012, right after they launched Tide pods. The result, more than a decade later, is Tide evo — a three-inch square of detergent fibers that feels like a pad of fabric. It costs nearly twice what pods cost. Executives at rival companies have said, more or less publicly, that they don’t get it.
Here’s what makes that bewilderment funny: P&G doesn’t need this product. They control roughly 60% of the U.S. laundry market. Tide alone is close to 40%. For most Americans, the smell of clean laundry is the smell of Tide. This is the safest franchise in consumer goods, and they just spent ten years betting against it.
