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Tide joins laundry PODs segment in India
The brand is also running an influencer-led marketing campaign on Instagram to push the product and draw attention to it.
Last week, Ariel officially announced that it was bringing its laundry POD products to India. On the side, Procter and Gamble’s Tide India has also brought the product to India. On October 31, the company tweeted about it with photos of the product, informing about its arrival.
Like Ariel’s laundry PODs, Tide PODs are also available only on e-commerce platforms. Tide is also making the same claims of whiteness, brightness and stain removal. One Tide POD can be used to clean one load of laundry, and their marketing messages on social and imagery seem very similar to the creative content that Ariel has been using on its social media channels.
Tide is also running a social media campaign with influencers to bring about a sense of familiarity with the product.
Nisha Sampath, an independent brand marketing consultant, points out that what is intriguing is how the brands are claiming to do so in order to bring convenience to users in a largely manual and somewhat back-breaking category.
She adds that in the case of Tide PODs, there is the possibility that it could cannibalise Ariel PODs, if it's at a lower price point. Sampath says it can be tricky to differentiate between the two brands in this segment, and Ariel is a more credible option than Tide, given the premium pricing and image.
She has worked with brands like Hindustan Unilever (HUL), Swiggy, Aditya Birla Group, GVK Group, BookMyShow, and Piramal Healthcare. Sampath says that there are many millennials and new age consumers who are seeking convenience.
She adds that the COVID pandemic is the right time to target people, since they are mostly doing their own chores. Convenience is relevant at this time, when most people have taken chores into their own hands (quite literally) in the absence of household help, who would normally take care of these tasks.
"Indians tend to overload the machines as well. In our country, people try to rationalise and use less of a product. Marketing wise, the first thing that has to be done is to establish a price-value equation. We currently buy by the kilo if it’s a detergent, and by the litre if it’s a liquid detergent. But what’s the price for a POD? What’s the price value equation there?"