Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Listening to Brands: Tide Pod Challenge

    The company’s social media presence I observed was one of Procter & Gamble’s products: Tide Pods. Tide has a value proposition of providing reliable quality laundry detergent at a reasonable price. Recently, their marketing department has been faced with threats to their brand image with the introduction of the Tide Pod challenge into social media culture.

    Throughout the entire year of 2017, there were a reported 54 intentional poisonings. However, during the peak of the Tide Pod challenge (January 2018), there were a staggering 134 intentional poisonings in just one month. The Tide Pod challenge is being spread predominantly by people between the ages of 12 and 16. This is supported by the statistical increase in intentional poisonings, as well as the influential nature of this age group. Through my social media observations, I noticed numerous people joking about the challenge unknowingly perpetuating this very real and dangerous “challenge.” This challenge has negative effects that are quantified by the increase in the number of people poisoned and people killed. To my surprise, four months after the height of the Tide Pod challenge, there are still hundreds of posts with the hashtag (#tidepodchallenge) every day, here are just a few examples:




Most of these posts are meant to be satirical and from a superficial perspective, these posts possess some degree of comedic value. Despite all this, the comedic value does not offset the negative effects this has on the influential age group involved in the challenge.

    The real challenge here is the challenge that Tide Pod's marketing team faces; their brand image is under attack. This trend has the potential to undermine all Tide's past marketing campaigns to construct their brand image. The loss of control the marketing team would face if their brand image gets hijacked by social media trends is detrimental to the company's success in the long run. This trend could re-correlate the message people receive when they look at Tide's brand from their value proposition "providing reliable quality laundry detergent at a reasonable price," to a message with a much more negative connotation.

   The company responded hesitantly as to not fuel the trend with the following video:
    After posting this video, Tide did not respond further to this trend. By breaking their silence and making a stance, Tide was able to drastically reduce the negative attention focused on the company.

   I believe Tide did the best job they could to mitigate the damage to their brand given the situation they were in. They did this by responding promptly with a clear stance. If I were in this situation, I would do everything Tide did because it was effective at minimizing damage. In addition to the actions they took, I would emphasize the severity of the situation. Specifically, I would make a public statement that we are doing everything in our power to ensure that trends like this involving our products do not happen again. Finally, I would make a point of increasing warning label visibility and making the emergency contact information more clear.

   In conclusion, I believe that the Tide Pod challenge had devastating consequences for both the company and the victims. Tide responded quickly with a strong message, which helped to reduce any further damage. With all things considered, I stand strongly behind Tide's actions and agree with their press release to say, "No No No to eating Tide Pods."

    Selyukh, A. (2018, January 30). Teenagers Are Still Eating Tide Pods, But Don't Expect A Product    Redesign. Retrieved April 19, 2018, from https://www.npr.org/2018/01/30/581925549/teenagers-are-still-eating-tide-pods-but-dont-expect-a-product-redesign    Statistics on Tide Pods affect on intentional poisonings








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