Tide seems to have been creating a lot of goodwill lately. They were there in the midst of Hurricane Katrina with a washing machine center to help the displaced get clean clothes.

Last month they tested social media marketing and gave to disaster relief charity.

In an effort to train their marketing managers, Tide joined 40 digital media and ad executives with 100 of their North American marketing directors at a charity night in Ohio. The invited were divided into four teams and given the task of raising the most money for charity in four hours. Each team was given a numbered site from which people could buy vintage Tide t-shirts for charity, and was to use social media to get the word out about these shirts.

David Armano has an insider's write up here and Associated Press did an article here.

In four hours, through the use of twitter, blogs, videocasting, MySpace and other social media techniques:

-Some 3,000 shirts were sold
-$50,000 was raised by consumers, matched by P&G for a total $100,000 for disaster relief.
-Tide generated huge buzz around their brand in one charity night
-People across the country will now be wearing Tide shirts

What an awesome event! Tide gave to charity, gave their marketing directors some memorable training, and strengthened their brand in one huge night!