MANILA, Philippines – Many say the Philippines is relatively recession-proof, but Filipino housewives don’t seem to agree.
They continue to scrimp and explore ways to maximize their peso. One way to stretch their budgets, it appears, is by doing laundry in one go each week.
As a result, Procter & Gamble Philippines president and general manager James Lafferty said sales of laundry detergent by P&G and the industry as a whole had dropped five percent over the past months.
Consumers seem to be adding more clothes to one load, Lafferty said at a news briefing. This saves water and detergent. If they want to stretch the product, that’s great. But we’re giving them extra to enable them to still get clothes that are fresh, with all the stains removed.
This gave rise to P&G’s P1-billion initiative, the Taba packaging initiative for laundry brands Tide, Ariel and Mr. Clean.
Under this initiative, P&G will increase the volume of the three brands by 14 to 35 percent without raising their current suggested retail prices. The campaign will last six months.
With the Taba packaging, the original 70-gram Tide Original Scent and Lemon Clean variants will now come in an 80-gram bag, at the same price. Mr. Clean Calamansi, originally packed in 60-gram sachets, will now contain 15 percent more powder at 69 grams.
The sachet volumes of Ariel Oxybleach will increase 20 percent from 45 grams to 54 grams, Ariel Freshness of Downy by 35 percent from 40 grams to 54 grams, and Ariel Ultramatic Oxybleach by 20 percent from 60 grams to 72 grams.
We believe it’s the right thing to do for the business and for the consumers. It’s a bold initiative, but we needed to make bold choices to get the vote of the consumers when they go to the stores, Lafferty said.
He said P&G felt that more than giving price discounts for a short promotional period, increasing the value of a product by providing more of it to consumers while keeping prices stable was the better path to choose.
This will have a great effect on the market, especially with consumers now consolidating bigger loads and even splitting sachets. It provides better value for consumers, he said.
P&G Philippines country public relations manager and external relations leader Jamie Endaya said the success of the Taba campaign on the company’s laundry products could possibly lead to the application of the same initiative on other P&G products.