• by P.J. Bednarski  @pjbtweet, January 12, 2021

Procter & Gamble is using the CES tech show, this year an online event, to launch the LifeLab Experience, where the CPG giant uses virtual reality to show how it’s using technologies to improve its products.

While P&G has had a physical LifeLab at the CES show in Las Vegas the previous couple of years to show off new product concepts to convention attendees, the virtual show and the virtual site is now available to the general public year-round. P&G will add new items periodically.

When consumers visit the P&G LIfeLab, they’re supposed to see how “our obsession with the consumer and relentless pursuit of innovation meet, driving us to create products that reinvent everyday experiences,” according to a preface. In the “immersive experience,” visitors can go from place to place, “talk” to experts, and understand what P&G is doing,

Most of the products currently featured in the LifeLab have been announced before, like the Oral-B iO toothbrush,  a show-stopper during an earlier CES that “reimagines brushing from the inside out with breakthrough innovative features,” according to the company.

The Life Lab Experience aims to present all of these improvements in one spot, something a giant company  like Procter & Gamble, with lots of moving parts, might have trouble doing in a coordinated way otherwise.

So along with Oral-B toothbrushes, the virtual LifeLab shows off Dawn Powerwash Dish-Spray, marketed in 2019. It’s formulated so spray-activated suds eliminate the need for soaking. It’s for families that clean as they go, and typically waste a lot of time and water inefficiently letting dishes soak.

LifeLab also gives space to EC30, a line of sustainable P&G products on a journey to be carbon-neutral, changing cleaning habits and recognizing the “systemic risks associated with water and climate change, and how they proliferate due to changing lifestyle patterns, increased industrialization, population growth, and rapid urbanization.”

The Life Lab is part of the trend for major brands to focus on showing consumers their commitment to issues like climate change. Last month, P&G said it had a 2021 goal of doing “2,021 acts of good.”

“We see an exciting future for the P&G LifeLab beyond CES,” said Paul Duncan, P&G chief design officer Phil Duncan. “We are investing in this disruptive virtual platform because we believe that the best way to continue engaging with consumers, partners, media and others around the world is to invite them to join us behind the curtain, no matter when or where they are.”