At Cleaning Products 2011, the agenda will cover a number of topics relating to innovations in the industry. Dawn French, Product Development Director for North America Laundry at Procter & Gamble, will be discussing "Sustainable Product Development: Cold Water Cleaning and Habit Adoption" the morning of October 6, 2011. Dawn leads innovation for new laundry products for Tide, Gain, Cheer and Era brands. She has over 25 years experience at P&G and has previously led R&D organizations in Skin Care, Color Cosmetics, Deodorants and Fine Fragrances in the US, Asia and Europe. Dawn shared some of her thoughts and insights with us leading up to this year's event.
- P&G is a company that is constantly innovating, can you share with us a little bit about the innovation process to develop Laundry products in the company?
Our innovation process strategy is simple, it is centered all around the consumers who are the cornerstone of all what we do at P&G. First, we study our consumers to understand their needs, desires, frustrations and delights. We then work in multidisciplinary teams to find solutions to problems and new ideas to please them. We create technical models to understand the problems we are solving, partner with external suppliers to find solutions and test products holistically to ensure they delight the consumer. We then focus on quality and rigor in scale up to ensure we can consistently deliver the delight we identified.
- We heard a lot about the new Tide Pods in the news, when they will be launched approximately and what are their main characteristics?
Procter &Gamble will launch the Tide PODS laundry detergent, its latest fabric care innovation early in 2012 in the US. Tide PODS are set to transform consumer laundry experience as well as drive the category growth. Tide PODs is small liquid unit dose form of a detergent, with a new formula that is HE compatible, twice as compacted as current 2x Tide Liquid and can be used even for cold water washing.
We know that consumers are ready for a radical change in their laundry routine that will simplify the laundry process and provide great results at the same time. Typically only 68% of consumers are satisfied with the amount of time and effort the laundry process requires to get excellent results. After using Tide PODS, 97% of consumers were satisfied with the time, effort and excellent results experienced and thus we believe that Tide PODS will be the solution they are looking for.
- What are you looking forward to listening at this year's Cleaning Products Conference?
I am looking forward to the diverse set of discussions, the networking and the ability to learn more about the industry trends. I am especially looking forward to hearing the variety of sustainability debate contributions as I believe the industry must work together to create a breakthrough in the area sustainability in order to preserve our planet for the generations to come.