Welcome Back to the Metaverse
The P&G LifeLab Returns to CES 2022 for an All-Virtual Display of Consumer-Inspired Innovation
What do you get when the second year of a global pandemic has you changing your plans for a hybrid showcase to virtual-only the week before the event? You get the P&G LifeLab at CES 2022: An immersive virtual world built in 2020, launched at CES 2021, and reimagined with the latest product innovations and virtual experiences from P&G brands and business units, including Oral-B, Gillette, Tide, P&G Beauty and more.
Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard kicked off our festivities at CES on Wednesday morning with a press conference to share how we at P&G are relentless in our pursuit of innovation that improves the lives of consumers around the world while showcasing the newly enhanced P&G LifeLab. Marc was also joined by:
- Alex Keith (CEO of P&G Beauty), who magically transformed into an avatar upon announcing the launch of the BeautySPHERE;
- Alexandra Vegas (Senior VP, Global Oral Care), who outlined how Oral-B is leading the development of new digital health innovations to enable better oral health for all; and
- Mariana McQuattie (Senior VP, Grooming North America), who shared how GilletteLabs has created an innovation that is changing the game (literally and figuratively!) in grooming.
The 2022 P&G LifeLab added even more experiences designed to increase opportunities for visitors, including employees, media, customers and consumers, to explore the Company’s approach to innovation in a truly immersive way. From fighting the Cavity Creeps with the Crest Defenders, to riding a GilletteLabs Exfoliating Bar like a hoverboard and collecting debris while racing down a virtual track, to strolling through the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew to learn how P&G scientists partner with Kew’s experts to verify that the botanicals used in Herbal Essences bio:renew products are legitimate and high quality, the P&G LifeLab invited visitors to experience how P&G is harnessing the power of science and technology to develop the solutions that give consumers the superior everyday performance they need, the sustainability benefits they want, and the future our planet deserves.
Visitors to the LifeLab could drop into distinct experiences for each exhibiting brand:
- Experiences from Oral Care showcased the Oral-B iO4 and iO5 toothbrushes, which deliver the same great iO technology and clinical results with broader accessibility, while previewing iO10 - the ultimate oral health coach.
- In collaboration with Bugatti, GilletteLabs took visitors behind the scenes of the making of the Bugatti Special Edition Heated Razor, and invited users to become one with GilletteLabs with Exfoliating Bar, which combines shaving and exfoliating in one efficient stroke, in a virtual racing experience.
- P&G Sustainability immersed visitors in innovations that reinvent responsible consumption and showcased products that are changing how consumers think about sustainability, including reducing consumption of energy, water, and waste. Meanwhile, Charmin shared its ambition to promote healthy forests and advance responsible forestry through its “protect, grow, and restore” sustainability effort.
- From the comfort of their homes, visitors could visit a virtual home to see how P&G brands and products – including Dawn, Cascade, and Febreze – are reinventing home cleaning and hygiene to help consumers live safely, with home as our sanctuary.
- “Attack of the Cavity Creeps” allowed visitors to relieve their childhood through virtual reality, dropping them right into the middle of Toothopolis to complete missions to combat bad breath, discoloration, gum disease, enamel erosion and defeat General Decay.
The highlight of P&G’s CES 2022 story was Tide Infinity, the byproduct of a Space Act Agreement between P&G and NASA, which was created with the goal of empowering astronauts to do laundry in space. Tide Infinity earned a spot on WIRED’s “Best of CES Awards”— a recognition that only goes to out to 12 companies – for the products, prototypes and ideas that did the best job of signaling the future at this year’s consumer tech showcase. Although it has important applications for spacefarers, who travel and live in water-constrained environments, the science behind Tide Infinity also has significant implications for our own planet, where the need for sustainable options in water-scarce areas is more important than ever.
Not to be outdone in the Best of CES category, Gillette took home a Best of Family Tech award from Parents Magazine, and Oral-B snagged a CES Innovation Award, as well as inclusion on Popular Science’s Best Health and Fitness Gadgets of 2022 list.
Always on the hunt for new innovation, P&G Ventures held its 4th annual Innovation Challenge where entrepreneurs competed for a chance to win $10,000 and partner with the P&G Ventures internal start-up studio. Submissions were evaluated by a panel of expert judges including CEOs and fellow entrepreneurs. Cindy Santa Cruz, founder of Lady Patch, a drug-free incontinence pad modeled after a prototype her mother created, won the $10,000 prize. (More information about the other three finalists can be found here).
In addition to the Innovation Challenge, P&G held panel discussions on responsible beauty in the BeautySPHERE, as well as panels exploring the Metaverse and the Future of AI with Vittorio Cretella, Chief Information Officer, and Victor Aguilar, Chief Innovation and R&D Officer, in the P&G LifeLab Amphitheater.
This was a week of incredible conversation about how innovation is improving not just everyday lives, but also our world. Learn more about the P&G LifeLab at PGLifeLab.com, and read about the experience and the products that we shared at CES 2022:
