Shock and awe: The way forward for Tide

Tide, the detergent brand known for ‘shocking’ people with its ‘Chouk Gaye’ whiteness adverts, did something rather dramatic to drive home its proposition recently. The city of Hyderabad was pleasantly surprised on the morning of June 15, 2007, to see a unique sight at the historical Hussain Sagar Lake – 2,400 clothes hanging on a 5.5-kilometre long clothesline, with Tide branding dotting it intermittently.

Ameen Toor, assistant editor, ‘Limca Book of Records’, was present at the location and confirmed that this was India’s longest clothes line. The clothes line was put up by P&G’s Tide as part of an integrated marketing programme designed by Arc Worldwide, Leo Burnett’s integrated marketing division.

CVS Sharma, aka Venke, senior vice-president, Arc Worldwide, adds, “Without using mass media, we wanted people to realise the value proposition of Tide, that a little amount of Tide can wash a large number of clothes. What better way than delivering a big surprise, the way the Tide TVCs do!” The solution was therefore dramatic with the aim of capturing the imagination of Hyderabadis that a little amount of Tide can wash all the clothes on India’s longest clothes line.

For those interested in numbers, 40 people worked for five days in 12-hour shifts to make all this happen; 30 security personnel were deployed to secure the clothes line; in all, 1,480 casuarina poles and 5.8 km of nylon rope were used.