gainlaundry.com/static/products.asp. Marketing application and analysis

The "release the hounds" reference used to promote Gain "Outdoor Sunshine" is reflective of the company's past marketing efforts for this product that have equated doing laundry with going to war while remaining "ladylike" in the process. According to Harris (2000), "Throughout the twentieth century, the aesthetic of cleanness has been simultaneously militaristic and ladylike. The rhetoric of germ warfare infuses descriptions of cleaning products, which depict housewives as soldiers on the front lines, 'killing dirt,' 'cutting through stains,' or 'getting brutal with soiled clothing,' as in an advertisement for Gain detergent that shows a laundress in a boxing glove clutching a pair of men's underwear ('Give your boxers some punch')" (p. 250). A common theme that recurs through this marketing copy, with the sole exception of 2X Ultra Gain, is the emphasis on the way the product smells rather than any specific emphasis on how well it cleans clothes. This approach may indicate that many consumers believe that most detergents perform about...

The research also showed that this company manufactures and markets a number of other detergent and laundry care brands that could easily erode the market for Gain unless careful attention is given to what target market is involved and what this target market is looking for in a laundry detergent. Given the company's success with this brand over the years, it is reasonable to conclude that the marketers at P&G have done their homework and know what this particular target markets wants in laundry care products.
References

Gain. (2008). Proctor & Gamble. [Online]. Available: http://www.gainlaundry.com/static/laundrytips.asp.

Harris, D. (2000). Cute, quaint, hungry, and romantic: The aesthetics of consumerism. New York: Basic Books.

Proctor & Gamble. (2008). Yahoo! Finance. [Online]. Available: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=PG.