I wanted to briefly highlight an interesting disaster-related cause marketing campaign you may have seen, Tide’s “Loads of Hope”. The initiative brings mobile laundromat facilities to areas struck by a natural disaster to provide free cleaning services to survivors.
“Loads of Help” was created in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and since then has cleaned more than 30,ooo loads of laundry in disaster sites around the U.S., most recently in flooded Tennessee and Kentucky. It is funded in part by the sales of vintage t-shirts and a percentage of Tide sales.
The campaign is a clever example of cause marketing in which a corporation finds an appropriate, related and useful problem to take on and build brand equity. It is also a rare example of a business that has branded itself through disaster response. Tide’s corporate parent, Proctor & Gamble, has also benefited from the use of its Dawn liquid soap’s in cleaning oil-fouled wildlife.
1 response so far ↓
1 Andrea LaBeck // Jul 28, 2010 at 7:51 am
Tide Loads of Hope is a great addition to disaster relief, but what most people don’t know is that they can not go into a disaster area immediately and it can sometimes take weeks for clearance. What if you have nothing left to wash, like the Greensburg Kansas Tornado, or Katrina?
A better addition to disaster relief is a product that the American Red Cross Chapters use for immediate assistance to victims – Outfit to Go. Too bad that FEMA doesn’t provide Outfit to Go when providing MRE’s and water, seems like a no brainer. Just my opinion.
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