Tide’s Loads of Hope Promotion

Have you seen TV commercials for Tide’s Loads of Hope promotion. Essentially, you can buy a Tide vintage logo T-shirt on their website and the proceeds of the sale support Tide’s efforts to help disaster victims. Here’s how Tide describes the effort on their website:

Tide Loads of Hope helps in the crucial days, weeks and years after a natural disaster by providing clean clothes and a sense of comfort to families in need. Partnering with America’s Second Harvest, we travel to key neighborhoods with the Tide CleanStart truck, our free mobile laundry facility. (Source: Tide website)

What do they do when they arrive at the site of a natural disaster? Their CleanStart truck as 32 high-efficiency washers and dryers that can do up to 300 wash and dry cycles a day. That’s a year’s worth of laundry for an average family. Over a four week period, they do 9,000 loads of laundry. In New Orleans, they’ve washed 20,000 loads of laundry for families hit by hurricane Katrina.

Proctor & Gamble, Tide’s parent company, has been involved with America’s Second Harvest since 1992. Now Tide has established the CleanStart Fund, a special fund under America’s Harvest Network “that provides clothing and essentials to people affected by distasters.” (Source: Tide website)

Tide’s Load of Hope promotion with the vintage t-shirt offer is a really smart initiative. First, they are doing a good thing – helping families in need; second, the promotion works with their brand – Tide is all about clean clothes; third, it builds goodwill for the Tide brand; fourth, consumer who buy the Tide t-shirts help fund Tide’s philanthropy (smart); fifth, when consumers do opt to support Tide’s efforts, they end up wearing the Tide logo, giving Tide further promotion and enhancing the brand.

Not only is this a smart promotion, it is also a great example of echo branding. Tide, a heritage brand in America, is connecting with consumers by promoting a value that it shares with them: The importance of supporting disaster victims right here at home. This is incredibly well-designed marketing. I haven’t purchased my Tide vintage t-shirt yet, but there’s still time. It is the holiday season after all.

Post by Dan Dunlop, Brand Expeditions