Tide, as the leader in the category, is always looking for ways to ensure the laundry process is the best it can be from product superiority to even the environment. When Tide discovered that 90% of the energy in the laundry process can be eliminated if people didn’t use hot water, we knew we needed to do something about it. Only problem was our audience had no idea. So we set out on a mission to let America know they should turn to cold.

Our challenge was not only to make people aware, but actually drive the behavior change, which is no easy feat. With that, our main objectives were to get people to turn to cold and ultimately buy Tide for the best results in cold.

Tide set out on a mission to convince everyone to make the switch to cold water under one big umbrella #TurnToCold. We brought together “cold” pop culture icons “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, one of America’s best known professional wrestlers, and Ice-T, an actor best known for Law & Order: SVU to convince celebrities like Vanilla Ice, Mr. T, Annie Murphy and Gordon Ramsay to turn to cold. Then to prove Tide’s superior performance in cold water, we called the NFL and convinced 15 teams— and all of their fans—to wash in cold. We hit multiple pop culture verticals, from music to entertainment to sports to get everyone to #TurnToCold.

Sustainability tends to be a one-off execution for brands, but Tide made sustainability the core of our day-to-day work and PR strategy. We set out on a mission that has the potential to remove up to 55MM kilograms of CO2 from the environment daily and made sure our messaging would breakthrough and resonate with the 50% of Americans who weren’t washing their clothes on cold. We brought our diverse target audience on the journey with us knowing they were unaware, skeptical, and that they would be motivated to turn to cold by different messages – including it’s better for the environment, could save money on their energy bill, and Tide cleans better in cold than the bargain brand in hot. By using different RTBs, coming from trusted celebrity influencers and athletes, under the #TurnToCold umbrella, we knew the messages would resonate. We also landed the proof with our NFL partnership.

Starting in March 2021, Tide brought together "cold" pop culture icons, wrestler “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and actor Ice-T, to make "cold calls" to convince celebrities like Vanilla Ice, Mr. T, Annie Murphy and Gordon Ramsay to #TurnToCold and ultimately educated everyone on the benefits of washing in cold in a sticky and memorable way. Then to prove Tide’s superior performance in cold water, we partnered with the NFL in September and convinced 15 teams— and all of their fans—to wash in cold. The #TurnToCold content expanded across broadcast, OTT, and online. The talent posted on social media, extending the reach of #TurntoCold and getting consumers to participate via sweepstakes by pledging to turn to cold. We also had radio, additional social from Tide, and Tide even turned its logo blue across owned platforms to get people’s attention and realize we were serious about our message.

In the first 10 months of the campaign we saw incredible results:

Over 1.3 billion new loads done in cold. That results in over 1 billion kilogams of CO2 saved. That’s like taking almost 400,000 cars off the road for an entire year.

Consumers became advocates of Tide and #TurnToCold which helps us reach even more people with over 1.4 billion organic social impressions and over 2 billion earned media impressions.

Tide moved off the shelf with a +39% sales lift of Tide Hygienic Clean, the product featured in the work. This made Tide Hygienic Clean alone bigger than three of our competitors’ entire brands.