Why P&G's Latest Cold-Wash Collab Puts Consumers at the Center
If you want consumers to change their behavior, it helps to make it really, really easy for them.
As Procter & Gamble works toward having 75% of laundry loads in North America washed in cold water, it recently expanded longstanding partnerships with a trio of appliance manufacturers to launch a washing machine certification program that hopes to do just that.
Machines certified as being “Tide Cold Certified” have undergone a multi-pronged, testing initiative developed in collaboration with GE Appliances, Electrolux, and Samsung, as well as external partners. In short: Washing machines with this designation can wash clothes just as well (or better) in the cold water with Tide products as they do in hot. What’s more, they require little to no effort on the consumer’s part to make the switch.
P&G's product lifescyle assessment determined that almost 70% of a laundry load’s carbon footprint is in the consumer use phase, driven by the energy to heat water, Todd Cline, P&G director of sustainability for fabric care, told CGT.
So while detergent product innovation is important, bringing in the washing machine manufacturers is critical, in no small part because doing laundry is a very learned habit.
In advancing laundry sustainability, P&G is leveraging the EAST behavioral framework — Easy, Attractive, Social, and Timely — developed in collaboration with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Behavioral Insights Team (BIT) to help drive consumer habit changes. Here, both “Easy” and “Timely” hinge upon having the right machine, especially since consumers tend to do laundry on autopilot, he said.
Ensuring a strong product experience was equally crucial: “The worst thing that can happen is you convince someone to try cold [and] their laundry doesn't turn out the way they want it.”
What is Tide Cold Certified?
To achieve Tide Cold certification, a washing machine must have at least one of the following options:
Cold water feature: A physical component that strengthens the machine’s ability to wash in cold water with Tide.
Custom cold cycle: A new wash cycle developed to provide a strong wash performance when using cold water in combination with Tide.
Cold water wash setting: A button or other setting that defaults to most cycles using cold water, eliminating the need for consumers to remember to turn the setting to cold.
The cold feature on the machine must also improve the cold wash performance with Tide compared to washing in cold without Tide (as proved by P&G).
Green Collaboration
In interviews with members of P&G, Electrolux, and GE Appliances, all three companies pointed to the natural synergies between helping consumers reduce energy consumption and extending the life of their clothing.
“This common objective felt like the perfect opportunity to tell a bigger story and make a great impact,” noted Lauren Tatum, senior product manager at Electrolux.
The testing process was multi-faceted, with P&G testing myriad machines for stain removal. While much of the individual companies’ data remained proprietary, they did share insights to inform decision-making, including how machine cycles and options can optimize product development. They also conducted focused testing in partnership with Cotton Incorporated and the University of Kentucky.
Quentin Pollett, director of advanced systems for clothes care at GE Appliances, said sharing data with P&G’s Tide brand about how consumers do laundry and use GE Appliances products has been common over the years. “With the addition of our Wi-Fi-connected appliances in the last few years, we have new insights that we can share to create new ways to help our products meet the needs of our owners,” he added.
The companies also met on an ongoing basis to share knowledge, including a full-day session at Electrolux’s headquarters where both P&G and Electrolux teams engaged in cross-training, brainstorming, and lab tours.
“We worked together at the onset of the project to establish a framework and then worked separately to gather input from stakeholders within each organization,” said Tatum. “We’ve worked really well together, and the framework and early buy-in made execution seamless.”
Future Steps
Looking ahead, P&G intends to gauge the performance of this first round and then optimize to ensure they’re connecting with consumers to help change their behavior, said Cline.
“I think we will always try to raise the bar on how well we can deliver on cleaning, and I think the partnerships will continue to raise the bar on how we deliver on the cleaning performance.”
More partners are also welcome: “We want this to be even broader because to get to 75% of loads on cold, we really need everyone doing the vast majority of their loads of laundry on cold,” he noted.
Understanding fashion and sustainability trends, as well as changing regulations, will also let them continue to collaborate to develop new products for consumers, said GE Appliance’s Pollett.
What’s more, P&G and Electrolux are part of the 50L Coalition, an initiative exploring how homes might be able to reduce water consumption. “The data we get from this project will help us with further development,” Tatum said.
