Tide Pods are on example of Procter & Gamble's renewed focus on category-changing innovation.
For Phil Duncan, global design officer for Procter & Gamble Co. (IW 500/11), innovation in its simplest form is "putting together what is known with something that is unknown."
"It's about connecting context -- the 'what is it?' -- with 'wow, I didn't know it would do that,' and wrapping it in all in an irresistible experience," Duncan explained earlier this year at the Front End of Innovation Conference in Orlando, Fla.
Duncan, a 20-year veteran of Cincinnati-based P&G, has seen that conception come to life with the recent launch of Tide Pods.
"We all knew that the liquid aspect of our laundry experience -- while really good -- had a few opportunities [for improvement], as we like to say," Duncan noted. "If you've ever used a liquid Tide container, by the end of the bottle you usually have some smudge running down the side. That was a less-than-ideal consumer experience."
P&G sought to change that with Tide Pods. Introduced in February, Tide Pods are tiny pre-measured packages of liquid laundry detergent -- sold in a bag or plastic fishbowl-shaped container -- that can be dropped in the wash.
Duncan said it was clear from early customer trials that "this unique dosage device" dramatically changes the way consumers interact with laundry detergent -- for the better.
"They were touching it, holding it, delighting in it," Duncan said. "Whereas before it was kind of a removed element that you poured out of a bottle or out of a scoop."
