Coalgate Palmolive holds a large share of the global toothpaste and toothbrush markets. Toothbrushes represent 19% of Coalgate's US Oral Care Division sales and profits. The document discusses Coalgate's plans to launch a new Precision toothbrush product, including market analysis, target consumers, competition, pricing, promotion strategies, and recommendations for niche versus mainstream positioning. It is recommended to initially position Precision as a niche product between Coalgate Plus and Oral B, and later as Coalgate's mainstream super-premium product to increase brand equity once manufacturing capacity is reached.

2.  Coalgate Palmolive holds 43% of world toothpaste and 16% of world toothbrush
market.
 Toothbrushes represent 19% of CPs U.S. Oral Care Division Sales and Profits.
 Income statement of COALGATE PALMOLIVE from 1989 to 1992 is shown below.
INCOME STATEMENT

3. MARKET CHARACTERISTICS
PRODUCT SEGMENTS
SUPER-PREMIUM
$2.29 - $2.89 (46% $ sales)
PROFESSIONAL
$1.59 - $2.09 (42% $ sales)
VALUE
<$1.59 (12% $ sales)
COALGATE PLUS COALGATE CLASSIC

4. MARKET CHARACTERISTICS
OTHER CHARACTERISTICS
BRISTLE TYPE HEAD SIZE HANDLE DESIGN

5. CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
TARGET GENERATION : BABY BOOMERS
THERAUPTIC BRUSHERS COSMETIC BRUSHERS UNINVOLVED
 46% of all adults .
 85% brush twice a day.
 62% use professional
brush.
 54% floss regularly.
 21% of all adults .
 85% brush twice a day.
 54% use breath fresheners.
 69% floss regularly.
 54% use professional brush
 33% of all adults .
 20% brush at most once a day.
 66% use mouthwash.
54% floss regularly.
Oral B Angle, Oral B Regular,
Coalgate Plus & reach
Oral B Classic, Coalgate
Classic, Coalgate Plus & Oral
B angle
Coalgate Classic & Oral B
regular , Coalgate Plus &
Reach

6. COMPETITION

7. MARKET SHARE
Market Share by Volume Market Share by $ Sales

8. PROMOTION
Expenditure in % of total salesExpenditure in million $

9. DISTRIBUTION

10. PRODUCT
 COALGATE PRECISION TOOTHBRUSH
 BRISTLES OF 3 DIFFERENT LENGTHS AND
ORIENTATION
 35% MORE PLAQUE REMOVAL THAN
NEAREST COMPETITOR
 HIGHLY EFFECTIVE IN CLEANING THE
GUM LINE.

11. OBJECTIVES

12. POSITIONING
NICHE
SKUs don’t need to be dropped
No demand-supply gap
Larger value share captured
Customers might not
acknowldege they have gum
disease
MAINSTREAM
Image of hot product
SKUs need to be dropped.
Large initial investment
Cannibalization of Plus.

13. POSITIONING (recommendations)
It is recommended to launch the PRECISION as a Niche Product.
Subsequently once manufacturing capacity is reached it will be
positioned as a mainstream product.
While positioned as Niche Product, PRECISION is to be placed between
Coalgate Plus & Oral B with Coalgate classic on the other side.
While positioned as a mainstream product it should be placed
seperately with other premium brands

14. POSITIONING
Various display units used by Coalgate

15. PRICING
 Factory list price to the
trade of $2.13,
 A premium over Oral-B
regular .
 At parity with Oral-B
Indicator.

16. CANNIBALIZATION
35% to 60% of cannibalization of
Colgate Plus and Colgate
Classic could be cannibalized
by the precision brand.

17. PRODUCT PROMOTION
 Sample Ads for the product launch are
given on the left.
 A customer survey was conducted on the
basis of these advertisements.
 77% of the test customers found precision
to be more effective than their current brush.
 The benefit of reduced gum disease was
however difficult to turn into a message.

18. PRODUCT PROMOTION
 80% increase in media promotion of
which 75% to be alotted to Precision and
25% to Plus.
 50%-off offer on any size of Colgate
toothpaste (up to a value of $1.00)
50¢ coupon in strong markets.
The cost of this promotion was
estimated at $4 million

19. BRANDING
 Stressing on the Precision brand will enable the product to stand alone
against other products in the super-premium category.
 This would limit the cannibalization of Coalgate Plus.
 However Colgate Palmolive’s stated policy is to increase brand equity.
 Hence; the Coalgate brand name should be stressed. Precision could
slowly replace as Colgate’s mainstream super-premium product.

20. Created by Saptarshi Bose
during a Marketing
Internship under Prof.
Sameer Mathur of IIM
Lucknow.