This is presentation prepared by Manish Gandhi, BIT Mesra during the summer internship under Prof. Sameer Mathur, IIM Lucknow.

1. Colgate-Palmolive
Company
The Precision Toothbrush

2. Company’s Market Position
A Global Leader in the House hold and Personal Care Products.

3. Situation
In August 1992, Colgate-Palmolive (CP) was
poised to launch a new toothbrush in the
United States, tentatively named COLGATE
PRECISION.
Susan Steinberg, Precision Product Manager
has to recommend Positioning, Branding and
Communication Strategies for “The Precision”.

4. Strengths and Weakness
 Strengths
 Was a global leader in the
house hold and personal
care products.
 Introduced 275 new
products world wide.
 Held the number one
position in the U.S. Retail
toothbrush market with a
23.3% volume share.
 Weaknesses
 Was unable to achieve proper
credibility from the dental
association on it’s products
when compared to it’s
competitor ORAL-B.
 Introduction of new products
may result in cannibalization of
other products like colgate plus

5. Product Segmentation
In the 1980’s Industry executives divided
the Toothbrush category into two
segments
*Value
*Professional
The late 1098’s saw the emergence of
another category called “super premium
brushes”.

6. Consumer Behaviour
Consumers were willing to pay a premium for the
new products addressing issues regarding the
health of their gums
48% consumers claimed to change their brushes at
least every three months.
Consumers chose their brand based on features,
comforts and professional recommendations.

7. Main Reason %
Fits Comfortably 63
Getting at hard to reach
places
52
Bristles of right softness 46
Bristles of right firmness 36%

9. Learning from competition
Taking notes of challenges from competitors
 Oral-B has heavy professional endorsement and is known as “The
dentist’s toothbrush” thus giving a tough match in the competition.
 J&K’s Reach- has excellent innovations like-a bevelled handle to help
consumer brush at 45% angle.
The Brand has scheduled the Launch of ‘Reach Between’ on
September 1992. This has to be kept in mind-after few months-
Precision has to be launched.
 P&G’s product claims to have the ability to reach between the teeth up
to 37% farther than leading brands.
 Smithkline Beechman’s AquaFresh Flex had flexible handles and
allowed gentle brushing. The brand has good promotional plans to
come up.

10. Advertising and Promotion

11. Product Design

12. Positioning
Precision was developed with the
objective of creating best brush
possible and as such becoming a top
of-the-range product.
Now, how do we position it ?

13. We had two choices
Niche
Positioning
Strategy
Mainstream
Positioning
Strategy

14. Pros and Cons of Positioning
Niche Market Strategy
Pros
 When positioned as Niche
product, it would target at
consumers concerned about
gum diseases.
 As such, it could command a
15% price premium over
Oral-B and would be
expected to capture 3% of
the U.S. toothbrush market
by the end of 1st year
following it’s launch.
Cons
 If Precision is positioned as a
Mainstream brush, Precision
would capture 10%of the
market share at the end of 1st
year following it’s launch. (Very
high when compared with
Niche positioning).
 The volume shares when
positioned as mainstream
would be 10% in 1 year when
compared to 5% when
positioned as Niche product.

15. Pros and Cons of Positioning
Mainstream Strategy
 Pros
 Mainstream was more
appealing as it proclaimed
larger market share & volume
share at the end of 1 year after
launch.
 Greater proportion of sales
would occur through mass
merchandisers and club stores.
Cons
 Raised concerns about
‘CANNIBALIZATION’ of colgate plus
and about pressure on Production
Schedules that had been developed
for Niche positioning.
 Production capacity increases
required 10 months lead-resulting
on inadequate supply of product.
 Positioning Precision as a
mainstream product with 7 SKU’s
would probably require dropping
one or more existing SKU’s

16. Branding
The Debate whether the
brush should be known
as “Colgate Precision” or
“Precision by Colgate” ??

17. Executives believed that product should stand alone
and the PRECISION brand name should ne
emphasized.
Stressing Precision as opposed to Colgate would
limit the extent of Cannibalization of Colgate Plus.
It was estimated both under mainstream and niche
positioning scenarios, the cannibalization figures, for
Colgate plus, would increase by 20% if the Colgate
brand name was stressed.

18. Test results were as follows
The toothbrush’s feature of preventing Gum disease
motivated the greatest purchase intent among test
consumers.
Additional consumer research revealed that 55% of test
consumers found Precision to be very different from their
current toothbrushes.
The research also revealed that the more the consumers
were told about Precision and how it worked, the greater
the enthusiasm for the product.

19. However, the clichéd look of the
brush put the consumers in
dilemma.
Also, it was difficult to translate the
message of greater plaque removal
with a broad consumer appeal,
since few consumers
acknowledged that they might
have gum disease.

20. So if You were
Susan Steinberg –
Precision Product
– Manager
What would you
Recommend ?

21. Suggestions and Alternatives
Positioning:
Initially Positioning Precision as Niche
Toothbrush and later broadening to
mainstream positioning would help the
product gain sufficient recognition by
avoiding cannibalization and would ensure
additional capacity once it enters the
mainstream.
Broadening into the mainstream positioning
would enhance greater proportion of sales
which now also occur through mass
merchandisers and club stores apart from the
food and drug stores.

22. Branding :
“Precision by Colgate” would be more prominent as it
would reduce cannibalization of Colgate Plus – which is
the bread and butter of CP’s toothbrush line and secure
it’s market position.
Placing The Precision at the center of the Brushes in the
storage shelves would ensure easy acceptance due to
prevalence of the Brand at the same time give it a
stand.

23. Communication Strategy
Investing a little more
on Advertising and
Promotion would not
do much harm as it
shall give a head start
to this potential
product
There must be several
Consumer promotions
to back the launch for
the mainstream
positioning as this will
attract a lot more
potential buyers

24. Since sampling would be critical to
Precision’s success, it would be
better to use Dentists to sample
consumers since professional
endorsements were more credible.

25. Spending 75% of all advertising
dollars of CP’s category spending
for Precision was essential
because it ensured Precision was
able to reach it’s potential
consumers through extensive
advertising.
This would not be threat for
CP’s Colgate plus as it has it’s
market share secured by the
Colgate’s Brand name, which is
not the case with Precision

26. Disclaimer
Created by Manish Gandhi, BIT Mesra,
during a marketing Internship by Prof.
Sameer Mathur, IIM Lucknow