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P&G Airs Your Dirty Laundry

Your Washer Is in the Basement and Other Facts Tide Pods Knows About You and Your Washload

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Procter & Gamble Co.expects big things from the little concentrated liquid-detergent packs called Tide Pods it's launching this month. The three-chamber unit-dose Pods in colorful fishbowl-style packaging are backed by a colorful campaign led by Saatchi & Saatchi, New York, inspired by pop artists -- hence the term "Pop" that plays heavily throughout the ads, said Sundar Raman, marketing director for Tide.

Here are some of the key numbers by which P&G measures the need and potential for Pods, which it bills as its biggest laundry innovation since the launch of liquid Tide in 1984.

$300 million: First-year sales P&G hopes to get from Pods.

$150 million: Estimated first-year marketing spending on Pods.

30%: Share of the $6.5 billion U.S. laundry detergent market that P&G projects unit-dose products like Pods can ultimately capture.

6,000: Consumers with whom P&G has tested Pods.

8: Years it took to develop Pods.

450: Packaging and product sketches rendered in the process.

900: The number of different conditions of water, stains, fabrics, etc., that affect the outcome of a wash load.

1: The number of hours a typical consumer can save annually by using Pods vs. pouring liquid detergent and using pretreaters.

22%: The percentage of U.S. consumers whose laundry rooms are in the basement and would benefit from having to carry just a Pod or two vs. a whole laundry bottle.

7: Weight in pounds of a typical liquid laundry-detergent bottle.

3.5: Weight in pounds of a package of Pods that does a similar number of loads.

90%: The proportion of active ingredient in Pods (the rest being water).

92%: The proportion of active ingredients in Dropps, laundry detergent packs from tiny Cot'n Wash that launched in 2010.

50%: Roughly the proportion of active ingredients in Tide liquid detergent.

10%: The proportion of active ingredients in the next leading laundry detergent brand.

100 million: The number of U.S. consumers who use Tide at some point annually.

20%: The proportion of U.S. laundry loads rewashed because of consumer dissatisfaction with the results (more often by men than women).

68%: The percentage of consumers who say their detergent lets them get satisfactory results with minimum time and effort.

97%: The percentage of consumers who say that about Tide Pods.

Source: Procter & Gamble Co., Cot'n Wash

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