Your laundry just entered the 21st century with 2 new services from P&G’s Tide

By Lulu Chang July 20, 2016

tide wash club laundry detergent pods

It’s been 178 years since Procter & Gamble first began selling its products to consumers across the U.S. and beyond, but this isn’t 1837 anymore. And to keep up with the times, P&G is adopting some pretty interesting 21st-century on-demand tactics, including the introduction of a new laundry detergent delivery service known as the Tide Wash Club.

It’s a similar model to the company’s Gillette Shave Club for razor blades, which was launched in an effort to stave off the growing popularity of the Dollar Shave Club. And now that the Cincinnati company’s chief competitor Unilever has bought the Dollar Shave Club for a cool $1 billion, it seems just as good a time as any for P&G to step up its presence in the subscription delivery service game, starting with laundry.

Related Videos

The Tide Wash Club will give users free shipping for single-use laundry packets of Tide Pods, which will be sent to their doorsteps once every two or three months, depending upon which subscription plan they select. The Tide Pods are actually P&G’s most expensive laundry detergent, but the firm seems to be hoping that the convenience of the new service combined with the offer of no-cost shipping will be enough to convince users to splurge a bit on keeping their clothes clean.

Atlanta residents are currently the only ones able to participate in the Tide Wash Club, but interested parties outside of the Georgian metropolis can sign up on P&G’s email list to stay in the loop on when the Club comes to their area.

Separately, P&G is also testing another laundry program called Tide Spin, which the company describes as the “uberization of laundry.” Currently available exclusively in Chicago, the program allows customers to use a smartphone app to order both laundry pickup and delivery from Tide-branded services. Think of it as your normal laundry service … but with a serious Tide component.

So if doing your own clothes washing has just gotten too difficult lately, you can thank P&G for its efforts to stay relevant and bring laundry into the digital age.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Computing

The White House finally enters the 21st century, adding color printers and iPhones

sxsl to performers announced white house washington dc

You'd think the White House would have up-to-date tech, wouldn't you? I know I did. Frank Underwood was throwing around iPhones like used napkins way back in House of Cards season one. But the real West Wing was anything but ready for the age of Facebook and Twitter, until now. In the first major technology upgrade since the 80s, White House staffers are now able to use modern computers and phones.

Until recently, iPhones were scarce, computers and printers were decades old, most office phones were pre-digital (we used to call that analog), and dependable Wi-Fi wasn't the way of life in the White House as it is in most U.S. homes and coffee shops. A comprehensive equipment and communications systems upgrade by the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations at the White House Anita Decker Breckenridge and outside consultant David Recordon, who was hired as the Director of White House Information Technology, now have everyone up to speed, according to The New York Times. Recordon came well-qualified, he previously was tasked with designing and maintaining IT for Facebook employees including Mark Zuckerberg.

Web

Callisto is a new sexual assault reporting system for the 21st century

callisto is a new sexual assault reporting system for the 21st century

In the ongoing battle against sexual assault, the stigma against reporting attacks, particularly on college campuses, has proven continuously difficult to address. A product of both a victim-blaming culture and a lack of appropriate tools and infrastructure, an alarming proportion of rapes and assaults go unreported and seemingly unnoticed. And while technical innovations have emerged in recent months to prevent sexual assault (such as the Companion app or Athena wearable), technology is still lacking when it comes to the reactive side of the issue. But with Callisto, a project that emerged from 501(c)3 non-profit Sexual Health Innovations, this may be changing for the better.

A college sexual assault reporting system for the 21st century, Callisto intends to "provide a more empowering, transparent, and confidential reporting experience for college sexual assault survivors." Users are given the opportunity to log into their school's specific Callisto website, "record what happened in an online form, and securely save the record with a timestamp." The site also provides survivors with information about where and when they can report the incident, and what to do if the same perpetrator is reported by someone else. And because Callisto gives full autonomy to the user in terms of how and when to submit their report, the system introduces a bit of control back into a situation in which victims often feel completely powerless.

Social Media

The art of communication in the 21st century — it’s not your grandma’s scene

interest buyable pins notifications pinterest buy button

Show, don’t tell, seems to be establishing itself as the fastest-growing method of communication among millennials. With the monopoly that social media and the Internet have on interpersonal interactions between friends, family members, and acquaintances, it comes as little surprise that young Americans rely predominantly on smart phones and their messaging apps to get in touch with one another. But when it comes to what type of services they’re using, apps like Pinterest and Instagram are becoming more and more popular, while the still-dominant Facebook has rather plateaued. According to a recent Pew Research study regarding mobile messaging and social media in 2015, both Instagram and Pinterest have seen their user base numbers double in the last three years.

Thirty-one percent of online adults now report using Pinterest, and 28 percent say they’re active on Instagram -- up more than 100 percent from 2012, when just 15 and 13 percent, respectively, of the online communities claimed to be loyal users. Nearly 60 percent of Instagram users report checking the app on a daily basis, whereas just a year ago, less than half reported such behavior.