Sometime in early 2019, Colgate embarked on the journey of repositioning its flagship product Colgate Strong Teeth in one of the biggest moves for the oral-care major’s ‘bread-and-butter’ brand since the 1950s. The change involved a new packaging and new formulation (after over 10 years of R&D and testing) with ‘Amino Shakti’ to make the product more effective. Thus, moving the largest selling toothpaste in the country to the newly coined ‘Andar se Strong’ platform. It was a complex task for the ubiquitous brand.
Shares Ram Raghavan, managing director, Colgate-Palmolive (India) in an exclusive chat with Brand Equity, “It was an India-first shift, and the company was very clear in the strategy that India would lead the way.” He adds, “We made a big choice on a shift to a different experience and engagement model. Until that point, we always spoke of problems (cavities), but with the shift to strong teeth, the conversation has moved to a more proactive solution.” The ‘Andar se Strong’ campaign had real life stories of Deepika Padukone (with her mom) and Mahendra Singh Dhoni (with his wife) among others.
Even as this mega-project kept the company busy, the oral care multinational continued its flanking strategy to build further on its leadership. For instance, its recent launch Vedshakti became a more important part of the company’s portfolio. The brand, endorsed by Bollywood actor Kajol and Southern star Jyothika, is said to be one of the most successful launches in the category and has also seen the highest rate of trials of the last 15 years in the category. As per company data, Vedshakti today is a Rs 100 crore brand with 10 crore consumers using it and is the 2nd highest distributed brand in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka in the naturals/ ayurvedic category of toothpastes.
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Another major initiative undertaken in 2019 was the launch of the Colgate ‘Equity campaign’ which narrated real life stories of courage and optimism. The campaign was around inspiring stories of everyday people like – Haimanti Sen, Divyanshu Ganatra, Anand Arnold, Yashaswi Jaiswal etc. This ‘Smile Karo Aur Shuru Ho Jao’ equity campaign was significant because for the first time ever, it marked a communication for the mother brand – Colgate. The smile integration is now visible in all the brand packaging and in all the messaging of Brand Colgate.
Says Raghavan, “We’ve had a good year. We consider it our responsibility as leaders to structurally elevate oral health in this country.” For the oral-care leader, that claims to be the most distributed oral care product in rural India, the core of its portfolio comprises Colgate Strong Teeth, Colgate Active Salt and Colgate MaxFresh. Each sub-brand has its strong regional hold and loyal base across the country.
It has helped the company to have a dual strategy of nurturing existing consumer base while working on bringing in new ones and upgrading existing users to the premium portfolio. In 2019, the premium portfolio was ramped up with offerings like Colgate Charcoal Clean (the country’s first black toothpaste), Colgate Kids toothpaste range and the launch of Colgate ProClinical 150 Toothbrush – the tech powered toothbrush. “We are looking to make sure that we are balancing the efforts between the core of the business as well as new areas of play,” shares Raghavan.
A balancing act that has worked well so far.
