This week we will be analyzing the Tide Pods website as well as two of their competitors, Arm &Hammer and Seventh Generation. The goal is to determine the ease of usability of each of the websites. Three individuals rated the three websites researching five tasks to perform while recording the number of clicks it took to perform the task, how much time it took to perform the task, and the ease or difficulty of each task. For the sake of brevity, an average of the three scores per company will be discussed rather than each task three times and numbers will be rounded. The five tasks were:

• Find the Pods (pacs) page
• Find the ingredients listing
• Find a coupon
• Find the contact page
• Find use instructions.

Tide Pods at http://www.tide.com

We’ll start off with Tide Pods and a screenshot of the Tide Pods page within the Proctor and Gamble Tide website. Not all of the website shows in the screen shot. There is quite a bit more to the page, but reducing the size made it completely unreadable.

Find the Pods page. It took an average of three clicks to get to the Tide Pods page from the Proctor & Gambles’ Tide website. an average of 1.75 minutes to find the Pods page, and was considered easy by all three subjects once they got their bearing on placement of items within the website. As big as Tide Pods have gotten with 14 varieties available, a website of their own might be warranted.

Find Ingredients Listing. An average of 5 clicks and 1.5 minutes to find the ingredients listing. This was considered a difficult task by everyone. The company probably needs to be contacted to get an Environmental Safety Sheet to learn about the ingredients.

Find a Coupon. One person never found the coupons. The average for the other two was 4 clicks within 7 seconds to find and considered easy once they found the tab.

Find the Contact Page. It took an average of 4 clicks, but the time was much longer for scanning the page at an average of 3.5 minutes to locate Contact Us in the footer site map. Although it took more time, each labeled it as easy to find, once they found it.

Find Product Usage Instructions. It took an average of 2 clicks within 7 seconds and was considered easy by everyone. One was very impressed with how much effort towards safety is displayed all over the site.

All three people felt the Tide website was frustrating to navigate with too much information available to have to sort through, although one person found the site interesting and colorful.

Arm & Hammer at http://www.armhammer.com

One person never found the website. I think he was trying to put an “and” in the name or possibly the site was down for maintenance at the time. These numbers will be an average of two users.

Find the Paks page. It took an average of 2 clicks within 8 seconds and was considered easy.

Find Ingredients Listing. It took an average of 4 clicks within 1.25 minutes and was considered easy once they figured out where they were going.

Find a Coupon. An average of 2 clicks were taken and it took 1.25 minutes and was considered easy. The coupon feature was easy to find, but you had to sign up on the site to see or get the coupon.

Find the Contact Page. It took an average of 2 clicks within 6 seconds to find the contact page and they considered it easy. They learned from the Tide site how to find the Contact Me page in the footer.

Find Product Usage Instructions. It only took 2 clicks and 4 seconds to find the product usage instructions. It was a matter of scrolling down the page and considered easy.

The Arm & Hammer site was considered easy to navigate and easy to look at.  They had less difficulties with having done the Tide page first, so the times were much faster as a result.  As many products as Arm & Hammer sell, it was refreshing to find the website easy to find your way around.

Seventh Generation http://www.seventhgeneration.com

Seventh Generation was a product none of the users were familiar with and thought it was interesting to look up a new product and it’s features.

Find the Pods page. It took an average of 4 clicks within 1.75 minutes to find the paks. Seventh Generation does many different types of products which made finding the pods a little difficult for all three users.

Find Ingredients Listing. Within 2.5 seconds each of the users had found the ingredients list which is listed on the pods page and could be found by scrolling down the page. Seventh Generation is a holistic product so it makes sense that they would list the ingredients prominently..

Find a Coupon. There evidently were not any coupons available on the Seventh Generation website. None of the users could find any.

Find the Contact Page. With an average of 2 clicks within 15 seconds the Contact Me page was found easily.

Find Product Usage Instructions. An average of 2 clicks was all it took to find product usage instructions within a 8 second period to find through scrolling.

All three of the people searching the Seventh Generation website said that the site was much easier to navigate than the Tide website specifically and easier to look at because it was simple with a lot of white space.

Conclusion

The usage investigation exercise of the three websites proved that when many products are available, the website does not have to be difficult to maneuver around.  The Tide website was considered the  most difficult to get around in or find things.  One user was very impressed with how Tide emphasized safety first and had that as a tagline.  One note I would like to mention is that all three of the researchers were not totally computer literate.  Some of the times could easily be shorter with a more experienced user.

 

 

Laundry detergent advertisements are not the most exciting pieces of news available., They are very careful legally not to overstep their bounds and not make claims they cannot live up to. The one big bit of synergy between laundry detergent ads is that they are pretty boring. They pretty much all claim to clean the cleanest, shine the brightest, and be the safest for clothes. Some claim to be safe for the environment.

Aside from online coupons or distributor sales ads that only show the product picture, no other wording, or logos, advertisements for pods of any flavor are getting harder to find. Magazine ads were of no help this week. There are some ads that appear to be print ads, but there is no information as to the date of the ad, where, or by whom it was produced which can easily make it an ad produced by a student or aspiring artist. There are many food ads with Tide pods as the ingredients from the negative publicity of children and teenagers eating the pods to prove this latter finding.

All PowerCore Pods

This is a still shot taken toward the end from a video advertisement from iSpotTV. This spot shows a bright and airy personal laundry room The windows show a bright sunny day and fresh flowers in the window sill with a neat stack of brightly colored and white folded laundry. The focal point seems to be the bright white curtain just above the center PowerCore Pods package which helps provide focus on the product. The effective tag line immediately followed by the “all” logo is also well highlighted by the white curtain and shelf at the top. It is shown from the labels on the packaging that this is a true synergy product, which is the merging of two products to make a completely new one.

Arm & Hammer Power Paks

This is an ad for Arm & Hammer Power Paks. Synergistic products are the in-thing with laundry detergents these days. There are mergers with OxiClean, bleach, scents, fabric softeners, and baking soda as is the case with this Arm & Hammer product mixed with OxiClean. Arm & Hammer not only claims to be a good cleaning product, but also claims to be economical, although pods have not been proven to be as inexpensive as liquid or powder soaps.

Gain Flings

Gain Flings, more specifically Gain itself, is known for it’s scent. Gain is used in synergy with Unstoppables and fabric softeners specifically for the popular scent that Gain is famous for. This ad design stays true to current advertising using the bright primary green, yellow, and oranges as attention getting colors. The little heart in the center of the letter “g” in fling is a nice touch. Of interest is the notation in the bottom left of the ad that states Gain is for the newer high efficiency washing machines. That distinction has not been noticed on other ads, so far.

Seventh Generation Laundry Pods

One approach taken by Seventh Generation has taken to set it apart from the others is a television campaign with several installments featuring comedian, Maya Rudolph. This is a fresh approach by a laundry detergent company having a famous comedic spokesperson to offer a whimsical side to laundry with life truths. Of course this is not a laundry pod commercial, but pod advertisements are very difficult to find, even though Tide introduced pods in 2012. The focal point is the bright white bottle of product, technically whiter than her white blouse with a possible pastel green background wall. The endearing gesture of a kiss shows product loyalty.

Persil Power Caps

Persil is considered the number two laundry detergent after Tide. Again this is not a pods advertisement, but the ad says a lot about Persil as a product. The ad prominently shows the bottle of Persil as well as two good examples of white and colors cleaning on clothes. What was striking is the Persil ProClean Money Back Guarantee. This says a lot about how confident Persil is with itself and it’s competitors – a pretty bold statement.

The only references to target audiences found are in two of the ads. The All ad does show a modern personal laundry room in what appears to be a nicer house which coincides with the target market for Tide Pods – an affluent young-adult to middle-aged family is the target market. The other ad, for Seventh Generation, shows a middle-aged female obviously enamored by her laundry detergent. Hopefully she isn’t hungry.

According to the writers of Better Reviews April, 2019, article the best laundry pods on the market today are Gain listed as The Best of the Best, All listed as Best Bang for the Buck, and without titles are Tide, Persil, and a newcomer to our research, Grab Green. This week we will be analyzing five visual advertisements from these different organizations.

Gain

Gain has long been running advertisements highlighting the long-lasting smell. This advertisement is of those same lines. The predominant color is green, the color of the Gain pods container, the color of money, and psychologically the color denoting freshness. This color scheme is working for Gain with the number one spot in this listing. Without the unfortunate warning label, this ad is purely visual with a photograph of a man in the foreground smelling his laundry and the photo of Gain superimposed directly next to the focal point, which is the piece of clothing the man is willingly smelling.

All

All Powercore Pacs did not have advertising beyond photos of product on shelves or in store adds with sale prices. The above is a still from a television advertisement as a photograph of a hand holding one of the pacs as the focal point of the still. The pods package is just blurry enough in the background to see New, All, and a pod swooping around the logo. The colors on the package are vintage All blue and yellow colors with New in white letters with a red banner. Blue is the predominant color which psychologically signifies tranquility, confidence, and integrity – all good qualities for a brand to have. Yellow denotes intelligence, and warmth

Persil Pods

Again this is a still from a television ad. The design of the ads are almost identical except for the focal point of the Persil is the pod container rather than the pod itself. The doubling of the hand photo makes it appear out of focus, but also denotes movement which brings the eye to the focal point of the Logo lettering. The dominant colors again are green, as with the Gain, but a darker tone-ed down green. with a touch of blue. Psychologically the colors represent freshness and stability, nearly like the All. The white lettering at the bottom almost fades off the page on the light brown background.

Grab Green
We couldn’t find any advertisements for Grab Green. The only thing found was product photos. This is a higher end brand of 3-n-1 scents in aromatic scents, 16 or more of them as best as I can tell. They don’t directly compete with Tide.

Being in need of two more products to analyze, let’s try plain Purex liquid soap in a bottle. The following is a series from a television ad where the focal point is slowly made smaller until all that is showing is the red box with white lettering saying New Improved.

Purex in a Bottle

References

This is primarily a visual ad with minimal type used, two phrases, “Purex Triple Action” and “New and improved”. Again the colors used a strong dark blue for the bottle with a green cap with a bar of green on the label. The only difference between this bottle label and others is a splash of red yellow included in the twirl around “Triple Action”.

Arm & Hammer Laundry Soap

This is a television advertisement for Arm & Hammer liquid laundry soap. This is a typical testimonial with an interview from loyal customer. The product is prominently displayed in the visual which makes it the focal point. The primary colors are yellow and green which denotes intellect, warmth, and freshness.

The way these ads tie in with Tide Pods, with the exception of the last two, although they are still competition is that all of the ads show the product prominently usually as the focal point. There is a general consensus of how an ad should look. It is either shots of the product package only, displayed openly as focal point, or blurred in the background, there isn’t much more done with ads these days. Other shots are of people in laundry rooms or laundromats using the product, similar to the Gain ad.

Thank you for stopping by. We will see you next week.

https://bestreviews.com/best-laundry-detergent-pods

https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=meaning+of+colors&fr=yhs-sz-001&hspart=sz&hsimp=yhs-001&imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fnetdna.webdesignerdepot.com%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F07%2Fcolor-meaning-table.jpg#id=1&iurl=http%3A%2F%2Fnetdna.webdesignerdepot.com%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F07%2Fcolor-meaning-table.jpg&action=click

Tide Pod’s competition has gained momentum since Proctor & Gamble (P&G) debuted the pods in 2012 (TheSpruce.com, n.d.). All product advertisements listed in this writing are not for pods, but they are leading laundry detergent competitors. All five companies have pods in their lineup of products. Pods from other companies are not advertised very well if nothing can be found.

Finding the advertisements was a bit difficult. There were plenty of product shots in the Kensak website (Kensak, n.d.), but very few ads for competitors. Mostly Tide products were highlighted. The websites for each individual company were of no help with advertising material, although there were many laundry instructional videos.

Two of today’s products, Gain and Woolite, are owned by Proctor & Gamble, the same corporate owner of Tide. This week’s blog will be highlighting five advertisements of the companies that are competing directly with Tide pods. The five advertisements are for Gain, Woollite, Purex, Persil, and Cheer, not in any order of importance.

Layout, composition, and effectiveness are three things to be looking at to dissect these ads to better understand them as an effective piece of marketing.

Gain

Gain scented pods are highlighted in this advertisement. They have named their pods Flings, which is a snazzier marketing achievement in name selection. There is a considerable amount of space between the bottom of the advertisement and where the line ends. There was probably another ad there that had to be blanked out for possible copyright infringement by sharing the ad online. The photo was downloaded as a “copy image” rather than the snipping tool I usually use.

The size of the ad could fit well into a website ad space. The small size would lend to being placed in e-magazines, print newspapers and magazines, too. This ad is screaming for your attention in all caps and in neon colors that are hard to miss. The green does pop and has a stark contrast to the white background. The typeface is in an all bold, casual font that doesn’t necessarily scream, but does calm the capital letters some. Two sizes of the font were used to create emphasis on the highlighted information. The target market is probably a younger, maybe college student to reach out to.

There is no call to action, just the product picture and two logos at the bottom. The logos of the additional products in the formula are well placed for balance with the bottom margin. This and the white space left at the top allows the product the upper portion of the space to be better seen. The type is wrapped around the product at the top and bottom, which helps balance the large area taken up by text. The focal point is the product picture. The ad is overly bold, but effective. I give Gain three thumbs up.

Woolite

This Woolite ad is not for pods, it is actually a website, but the design has a lot of good balance and usage of space. Woolite does have pods. This would be a good layout for an ad. The margins are clean and appropriately wide. The bottom grid defines the bottom of the ad with a bleed if it were printed. The different colors break up the repetitiveness of the four pieces being highlighted.

The logo at the top of the page balances the top and left side of the page well with the larger product picture. The swirly lines at the bottom of the logo help bring the eye into the product name. The menu bar at the top could easily be a line for a slogan or ingredient information. The text in the middle is left justified in a sans serif that is easy to read. It does balance the the width with the bottom area bleed. A product feature is highlighted in the center of the page with the name of the company. The headline is large and readable, although it does blend into the lighter blue background. The text paragraph is of appropriate size. The call to action,”Read More”, is displayed well at the bottom of the text.

This takes us to the brown, curved line at the top. This may be their slogan, but it is hard to read going from small to larger type on the curved line. The line does not reach the center for balance in the horizontal. The text appears to bleed at the top which matches with the bottom bleed. This line just looks out of place. The target market is young women adults. I give Woolite four thumbs up.

Purex

Again this Purex ad is not for pods, but it is a competitor that does market pods in their lineup. This Purex ad is a very effective display of multiple products. The colors of the staggered products shout out as does the Purex name. The white star effect behind the product helps bring the eye into the center of the page. The focal point could easily be the stark white inside the handles of the two inside products, which is not optimum.

The type at the bottom has much less of a margin than the top. The left margin is larger than the right margin. Everything could have been centered on the page better. This could be a banner ad for a website, although it is a little tall for that. The ad could easily be in online and print venues. The ad may be too colorful for some newspapers, although color is readily used in the newspapers since they went digital.

A play on words is used on the text line at the bottom. A period is used at the end of each phrase to emphasize the speech as strong and authoritative. The voice is conversational, spoken a little loud, but pleasing. Color is used to highlight the word “Pure” combined with “clean”, then combined with “value”, and the product name last by itself. The colors of the type change for added emphasis on the words. The typeface is sans serif which is easy on the eyes and very readable and of an appropriate size for balance with the product.

The target market is vague here in that no specific product is highlighted. There is no call to action, which detracts somewhat from the effectiveness. I still give Purex four thumbs up.

Persil

This Persil ad is part of a campaign that was on television and online in video form, the internet, and assuredly in print. This is the same size as the above ad, which again makes me think it would be a good banner ad, e-magazine, print magazine or newspaper. The piece is a little off-balance with the bright white on the right and the product centered in the space between the left margin and the elbow. The bright white is a bit much, but it does help the implied motion of the arm angles. The white tuxedo was part of the campaign.

The logo above the call to action/slogan off-center of the ad is not necessarily needed with the product name being so large on the bottle. The logo crowds the top margin creating an imbalance in the ad. The slogan is encased in a chevron graphic with the wording in the middle centered in sans serif for easy reading. The type is in all caps which is loud and authoritative but done cleanly with two typefaces, one light and one bold. “Deep clean” is highlighted in the bold text and it appears all of the text has a shadow effect to it. With the white tuxedo and bow tie, the target market is upper-income men. I give Persil 4 thumbs up.

Cheer

This, too, is not an Cheer ad for pods. Cheer does have pods. The advertisements are difficult to find. I could not resist the caricature drawing and retro style of the ad. Cheer does have pods and still sells powder. The almost square size of the ad makes it more of a e-magazine, magazine or television ad. I’m not sure if newspapers have this size available.

This is a very busy ad. It has bleed all the way around. The white towels make for an imaginary border on the left, the call-outs make for a border at the top, the lettering on the right, and the last letter of “Cheer” provides a border on the right. The box of Cheer and the pouring powder fade off the edge which makes the bottom margin null.

The mood is happy and shouting with glee. The lines above the towels denote movement which leans toward the inside of the towels which helps bring the eye down to the center. The lady is all smiles, showing off a white towel. All of the text is informational and there is no call to action. With the exception of the wording on Cheer box, there are four typefaces, all sans serif, some all caps for emphasis, some lower case for part of statements. The call-out text on the right has a casual almost handwritten italic type that is much different from the rest as well as being one we are to now avoid. Keeping the typefaces down to three is better so as to not confuse the eye. The cartoon graphic in the middle of the call-outs at the top are a bit to much to portray professionalism of any sort. The drawing of the lady is believable. The target market appears to be women with several kids, judging from the quantity of towels. I give Cheer four thumbs up.

References

Kensaq website, n.d. Retrieved fromhttps://images.search.yahoo.com

TheSpruce.com, n.d. Retrieved from https://www.thespruce.com/tide-laundry-detergent-through-the-decades-2146627

Tide and Tide Pods have a lot of competition. But with Tide Pods being at the top of the heap as No. 1 in United States Household Products Division, Proctor & Gamble (P&G) is not only happy but will continue to do what it takes to keep that top spot.

As No. 2 in the Household Products Division, here the Persil product is displayed in the same manner as Tide as seen below. As shown Persil also has pods for direct competition with Tide Pods. Persil is a little more conservative with their color scheme using the bright blue bottle and the differentiation between types within the labeling. This is a good cost production cutting measure.

No. 3 on the list is Seventh Generation. This is an all healthy, biodegradable laundry detergent for sensitive skin. There are three scents: free and clear, lavender, and lavender & eucalyptus. Both lavendar and eucalyptus are aromatherapy scents. As you can see, they also have pods to be in direct competition with Tide Pods. But the Seventh Generation pods are powder detergent filled instead of liquid. Seventh Generation uses bright colors for marketing on shelf space.

No. 4 on the list is All. Here again they have pods. These pods appear to be both powder and liquid. All has also teamed up with other powerful detergent maker Oxi. For shelf marketing, All is also decked out in bright colors to be seen easily.

No. 5 on the list is Gain. They also have pods. Gain is a P&G company in direct competition with one of it’s own products. Gain seems to have the most colorful packaging with really bright colors that attract attention for shelf space in the stores.

No. 6 on the list is Arm & Hammer. As you can see, they have four varieties of pods for sale. They also work with Oxi for cross-platform products. Their packaging is the least bright of the others, but uses multiple colors to be attention grabbing.

No. 7 on the list is Tide Simply Clean with two times the baking soda power. This is another example of Proctor & Gamble competing with itself. This brand also does a cross-platform with Arm & Hammer with having baking soda in the formulation. Tide differentiates the packaging color so that the iconic orange is a translucent orange lid.

No. 8 on the list is Purex. As you can see, there are four formulations, one scent-free and three distinct scents, all with dirt lift action. Purex also is marketed with bright colors to get them noticed on shelves.

No. 9 on the list is Woollite. Woolite comes in a regular formula, dark clothes formula, and a delicate formula. Woolites signature white bottle with a blue lid is iconic as it has been used from nearly the beginning. The black bottle for the dark colors is appropriate. Woolite is a brand of laundry detergent owned by British multinational Reckitt Benckiser. The company acquired the Woolite brand when it bought Boyle-Midway from American Home Products / Wyeth in 1990. The company manufactures laundry accessories, among other consumer goods. I never knew Woolite wasn’t an American product.

No. 10 on the list is Ecos. Ecos is a plant-based, biodegradable, and mostly chemical free laundry detergent. This definitely sets itself apart from the competition. Although the white bottle may seem understated, with all of the colors on the store shelves, this bright white may just styand out.

References

Meth, J. (2019). The Real Tide Pod Challenge. Fortune, 179(3), 104–114. Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-com.links.franklin.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=134726230&site=eds-live

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton