Original subtitles

Narrator: Welcome to "tomorrow's world today,"

a show dedicated to the discovery of innovation

and cutting-edge technology.

We showcase the latest developments

from the greatest companies and smartest people in the world.

Tomorrow's ideas are out there.

And through our journey of inspiration,

we will uncover the technology of the future.

This is inventionland world headquarters.

Here now is George davison.

♪

Hey, everyone.

Welcome to "tomorrow's world today."

I'm your host, George davison.

Sometimes it's the simplest, everyday things

that make the biggest difference.

Isn't the smell of fresh laundry refreshing?

♪

It can lift the spirits of people worldwide.

But have you ever wondered exactly

how your laundry detergent

gets your clothes vibrant and clean?

Let's find out.

Today, we're gonna take a look at the chemistry behind laundry

and the ingredients that remove stains and odors

while extending your clothing's life-span.

What I want to know is

how is detergent being created to improve sustainability

and energy and water conservation?

And what is the most innovative laundry product out there?

We'll dig into one of america's oldest

and most innovative household names

to see how laundry went from a time and labor intensive chore

to a simple push of a button

on a high-efficiency appliance with pods.

I'll see you in Cincinnati.

♪

This is where it all started --

The ivorydale building in Cincinnati,

home of procter & gamble.

Inside this building is where the company made soap

as far back as the 1800s.

In fact, this is where tide was first invented in the 1940s.

A century later, a company scientist named David byerly

was working to create

the world's first synthetic laundry detergent.

And he kept at it even after the bigwigs at procter & gamble

told him to give up.

But byerly wasn't going to be easily stopped --

After working in secret for 14 years,

in 1946, he finally developed the prototype

of a revolutionary new product that came to be known as tide.

It was an innovation that made laundry soap,

including some of p&g's own soap-based products,

like duz, essentially obsolete.

Today, tide is in the laundry room

of 2 out of every 5 homes in the United States.

It brings in $3.5 billion a year for procter & gamble.

You might say they've cleaned up on David byerly's invention.

♪

I'm gonna tour the procter & gamble museum

to go back in time to when tide was first created.

I'm curious to see the history of the product

and how it was developed.

I've got my own personal tour guide all lined up.

Hey. Oh, hey, George.

Welcome to the p&g archives.

Great to be here.

So I understand you got to use one of these yesterday.

Uh. In fact, I did! My triceps reminded me of that.

This is how people had to wash clothes then.

It required a tremendous amount of manual labor.

And in the early 1900s,

we moved to powders and flakes,

still soap-based detergents.

Now, there were a couple of problems with these, though.

One is it's really hard to get good lather in hard water

from a soap-based detergent.

The second big problem is soaps can leave behind

something called soap scum in your fabric.

So that is when we decided

it was time to invent a heavy-duty detergent,

and that takes us to tide. Oh.

So welcome to our tide display.

Oh, oh! Wait a minute. What is that?!

Is that byerly's box?

That is. That is the original formula.

This would have been in the early '40s

when he would have been working on that.

And you notice it still says "product x"

because he didn't know

what to call it yet. Davison: Oh, my goodness!

But that was the original formula

which would lead to the 1946 launch

of the tide that we know today.

Beautiful.

Then as, you know, consumers' habits

and laundry needs change,

we would change the technologies.

So, you know, moving from powders into liquids,

creating things like the self-draining closure

to reduce mess into solving problems

outside of the laundry room, like tide to go.

[ Chuckles ] We use that.

Oh, thank you.

And then as we move forward, too,

into new services and solutions

like the tide eco-box, tide pods,

and even tide dry cleaners.

With tide's launch in 1946,

p&g officially moved from being a soap company

to being a technology company.

And with that, we wanted to also innovate in advertising.

And that's what I want to show you next,

so let me go get a couple of things.

Great.

Davison: Tide launched right at the time

when women were returning from the war effort.

And of course, tide hitting the market

happened to perfectly coincide

with several key historic moments --

The beginning of postwar baby boom,

the birth of the television industry,

and the advent of the automatic laundry machine.

Tide suddenly had a booming market

and the perfect way to sell their product.

I'd like to dig into how tide was able to use this new medium

to connect with consumers and build the brand.

It's not just a household name,

but the go-to laundry detergent.

So, George, I brought you an original tide ad

to take a look at. [ Chuckles ]

"The washday miracle!"

Called that because now with tide,

you could get your laundry done in hours

instead of a full day.

Yeah, that's big technology back in the day.

The invention of tide

and going out to tell the story to the public

about what it'll do for them.

I mean, you have to demonstrate what a new technology does.

And that's, of course, why we do the demo and we still do --

Where we show side-by-sides, you know, two shirts,

two socks, whatever -- The before and the after.

Basically, demos make a promise

that then the product has to deliver.

So I know that you need to get on

to get a behind the scenes on tide pods,

so thanks so much for coming.

Thank you, Shane.

♪

♪

Oh, hi, Mary. Hey, George.

Hi, fabrizio. Hey, George.

So this is the innovation center.

You call it the eye, huh?

That's right, and let me show you

one of our biggest innovation -- tide pods.

This is a tide pod and it's a very concentrated detergent.

To make it, 100 scientists had to work for 8 years,

and we got 50 patents out of it.

There are several cleaning ingredients in here,

like surfactants and cold-water enzymes.

We also now have antioxidants.

One of the reasons we can put all those ingredients here

is because we have three chambers that allow them

not to combine too early and react with each other.

But yet it dissolves very quickly.

And it does because we have this film

that will resist quite a bit of pressure

but yet, in water will dissolve

even in the coldest of conditions.

Let me show you. Alright.

So let's watch this dissolve.

♪

[ Fizzing ]

♪

Wow! That's fantastic.

Let me show you something else.

Okay, Mary.

I wanted to share our latest innovation

from tide pods,

which is tide power pods hygienic clean heavy duty.

Turns out only 30% of laundry soils are food stains --

Things that you can see.

70% of laundry soils are invisible

and they come from our bodies.

So they're things like the one liter of sweat

that our bodies produce throughout a day

with 10 grams of salt and 40 grams of sebum --

It's the sebum that causes acne --

And then two billion skin cells.

In one day, this is what our bodies produce.

They are transferred to our clothes.

And so I have two shirts here for you --

One was washed with tide power pods,

the other one was washed with a competitive detergent.

Well, let's look for invisible soils

with our trusty U.V. light.

Alright.

♪

Right here. I can see the stains right here.

The unique innovation

in tide power pods hygienic clean heavy duty

is that we have surfactants and enzymes

and a mix of multiple cleaning ingredients

in the highest concentration

that can remove not only the visible stains

like the food stains,

but also these invisible body soils

so that your clothes stay white and bright

instead of yellow.

Well, I really like that idea

because I was always wondering

why some of the clothes that we have are turning yellow

when I don't see any yellow on the clothes.

But over time, that will turn yellow and begin to have odor?

Is that correct?

Absolutely, yes. Interesting.

If it's not removed deep down at the fiber level

like they are with the tide power pods,

it will cause odors and yellowing over time.

Great innovation.

If you like these innovations,

let's go and show you

ivorydale technical center... Alright.

where all of this magic happens.

Love to see it.

Hey, Dan. Hello.

Hi, Dan. Hello.

So we're gonna take you through

how the technical testing works.

We're testing some malodor technologies

in this little detergent syringe,

some liquid detergent.

That'll shoot into the washing machine,

little, tiny washing machine,

and then fabrics will automatically deploy

and a wash cycle, which will start.

My goodness.

So what this is, you know,

10 little, mini clothes washers here.

Indeed.

And these little syringes inject new formulas...

That's right. Into there?

That's fabulous.

What a unique piece of machinery.

Indeed. Yeah.

Speaking of mini --

This has to be the world's smallest laundry bag.

That's right.

If the washing machine is small,

everything needs to scale down.

You know, the clothes need to be small.

The stains we test need to be small, as well.

And by doing it this small,

we save on water, we save on chemicals.

Sometimes the chemicals we test

are only available at the beginning

in very small amounts,

so this way, we can do more testing with less amount

and it spends less energy.

Sounds more sustainable, more environmental.

That's right. And also more economical.

So out of the lab, there's 20,000 experiments

tested in here

to find a way to invent a better way to clean.

Yes, better detergents for the consumer

so tide works every time in every wash condition,

with every fabric and the different soils

that consumers have.

My tide detergent -- I can do that in cold water,

and that was a big innovation, wasn't it?

Most of the energy that is used in laundering

is through heating the water in the wash.

If we can make a detergent like we do

that works as well when it's called,

then consumers can save a lot of energy

and reduce their environmental impact.

So 80% less energy when you're doing your laundry,

because we're doing it in cold water

with the invention of the enzymes that are inside tide.

Yes, the enzyme was invented in p&g

and was tested in equipment like this.

We have equipment like this all over the world,

so we test globally, and that's how we developed

a better cold water set of technologies

for our detergents like, you know, tide pods.

[ Whirring ]

Meli: So the washing's done

and we're going to now pick these fabrics

that have been washed with the malodor technologies.

We're going to dry them out individually,

they're going to go into a jar,

and we're going to measure the head space over it

to see if we removed all the malodor that was in the fabric.

Okay.

So that is the small-scale testing we do.

It's a more general testing.

But for a detergent to work

for all of the consumers of the world

and they all have different washing machines --

We need to make sure we serve them.

So for that, we'll go to Mary,

which will show us the full-scale washing machines

we have that represent all the world consumers.

♪

♪

Hi, Mary. Hey, George.

Well, fabrizio said I should come see you

because you're going to teach me how you scale up technology.

Absolutely. Scaling up is the right word.

The flex wash that fabrizio showed you

is used to evaluate new technologies.

But we have to confirm that those technologies

are going to provide the stain removal, the odor removal,

the whiteness and the brightness that we expect them to.

And that's why we have to test in real world machines

under real world conditions.

P&g is the number-one fabric care company in the world,

and that's why we sell tide

or in many other places

called Ariel. Yeah.

And we have to evaluate them in real world conditions

using the washing machines that are found in those countries.

This is a set of washing machines

that are very popular in Japan.

Now, you might ask yourself,

"how can you do wash testing?

Aren't the conditions different in Japan, say, in Tokyo,

than they are here in Cincinnati?"

Yeah. And they absolutely are.

And so what we have is this terrific piece of equipment

where we can dial into the wash water

the exact temperatures that we want

that mimic the temperatures in Tokyo.

But we can also mimic the water

and the minerals and the metals

that are also found in the wash water in Japan.

Oh, my goodness.

Who would've ever thought you'd have computers

figuring out water from all over the world

and putting it into machines from all over the world

here in Cincinnati?

Yeah, who would have thought?

But it's absolutely important

so that consumers get the benefit

that we say that they're going to get.

Davison: Mary, it looks like a grocery store,

but we're not actually in the grocery store right now.

This is our retail technical center.

This is where we bring in our retail partners

to help them to envision what our new products line-up

are going to look like on their store shelves.

So all your products are here and displayed

and you also have your competition here

so you can start to figure that out

from a marketing and display perspective, right?

Well, let's see here. We have the new power pods.

Let's talk about sustainability,

and where are we headed here?

So tide has been a leader in sustainability

for over 35 years.

Today, our packaging is 25% post-recycled materials.

Our goal is to make that 100%.

On the way to achieving that goal,

we have committed by 2030

to reduce our use of virgin plastics by half.

Excellent.

We're also working to reduce our carbon footprint.

Two main ways -- our manufacturing sites

are zero waste-to-landfill

and utilize 100% renewable wind energy.

Wow. The second way

is designing our products

to provide an outstanding clean in cold water

so that consumers can forego the hot water cycle

and save energy that way.

Wow. Okay, so we have four big innovations here --

We have a lot less plastic use in the future,

the use of wind power in your factory,

we have zero waste coming out of the factory,

and we have cold water enzymes

so we don't have to run our hot water tanks

and consume as much of mother nature's energy as we used to.

That is a great story, Mary. I love it.

♪

♪

Part of the future is here

in the form of out-of-home laundry.

It's all about the convenience of dropping off your laundry

and picking it up.

It's basically taken a chore off people's shoulders.

You might say,

"a load off their minds."

Come on, let's go meet Moses.

Hey, Moses. Hey, George.

Welcome to tide cleaners.

It's great to be here and meet you finally.

So this is one of our flagship stores for tide cleaners.

I'd love to show you how that comes to life.

Sounds great.

George, let me show you how this

24/7 pick-up kiosk works. Alright.

You can either bring your phone and scan it

or you can look up your phone number

and easily be able to get your dry cleaning

whether you come at, you know, 5:00 P.M.

Or whether you come at 1:00 A.M.

Whatever time that you need it,

you can easily pick up your clothes.

And this is really convenient for our guests

to be able to come and grab their orders

whenever they can come to the tide cleaners.

So there are two items coming right now?

Two items coming right now.

It's a system that's connected to all of our metalprogetti

in the actual tide cleaner store

to be able to communicate

and be able to bring the clothes directly to you.

Look at that! Oh, yeah.

So it will open it up in a second.

And what we need to do is make sure

that we're convenient for our guest.

And we do this by obviously being able to provide

for their needs as best as possible

across all of our tide cleaners locations.

Jeez, you guys have been busy.

We have been busy and busy really trying

to deliver for our guest because we got to deliver

whether they're coming into the store,

whether we're delivering it to them

with our contactless drop-off,

or whether we are in the end

trying to deliver for their needs

in times of need, such as covid.

And so one of the things that we worked against

was how can we deliver for front-line responders

who are facing very stressful days,

working 24 hours a day

and really looking for ways to lighten their load?

And so what we did was through tide loads of hope,

we were able to provide free laundry

and dry cleaning services to our front-line responders.

Wow, Moses, what a rig!

Yeah, this is our tide loads of hope mobile laundromat truck.

We've got six washers and dryers here

and can do over 100 loads of laundry a day.

And with our bigger truck, we can do even more.

So the truck can move right into these disaster zones

and start helping people and giving them some hope.

I like that idea.

We launched it during hurricane Katrina in 2005,

and since then, we've been able

to expand it to other disasters.

Wow, that's pretty innovative.

Tide loads of hope was really set around disaster relief.

We deployed our first mobile laundry unit

to New Orleans in 2005

and have since expanded to other disasters such as tornadoes,

floods, wildfires, and many more.

Our tide loads of hope truck

has become a symbol of hope for families in need.

When we give the clothes back clean, people are elated.

It can make a world of difference

during a time of chaos.

♪

So we've learned all about the history of tide

from a revolutionary inventor, David byerly,

to all sorts of developments since then,

including tide pods.

As we all just saw,

this group of innovators at procter & gamble

who've been awarded over 13,000 patents in their history,

well, they're determined to increase

the pace of innovation in the industry.

We learned how they're developing laundry detergent

that makes doing the laundry

more energy and water efficient than ever.

But right now, like I said,

it's laundry day.

Well, that's great, Mary. Thank you.

You know, I figure I've got about a year's worth of tide

in here I'll take home.

Bye, Mary!

George?

Bye, Mary. George?

[ Chuckling ] Bye, Mary. George?!