COLGATE TOOTHPASTE

Marketing Strategy of Colgate Toothpaste

Marketing Strategy of Colgate Toothpaste

Introduction

Colgate-Palmolive Company is one of the most important consumer products companies. Colgate sells, makes, and delivers a portfolio of personal, oral, pet nutrition and home care products. Colgate-Palmolive has strengthened its leadership of the United Kingdom toothpaste market with new product sales. Despite its global leadership in various consumer product sectors, in recent years Colgate-Palmolive has been homing in on its founding interests of oral hygiene and personal care. New product launches in 2003 have boosted market share and are expected to provide the momentum the company needs to make a success of its December rationalisation programme. This paper discusses the marketing strategy of Colgate toothpaste and also give some suggestions.

Discussion

Colgate-Palmolive dominates mouth care, a position that can be attributed to its truly global presence, high consumer brand loyalty and strong ties with the dental profession across the world. There is still plenty of potential to increase usage of secondary toothpaste and mouth care products such as dental floss even in developed markets by attracting new consumers through educational campaigns.

Colgate is the world's number one toothpaste and mouth care company, dominating the category with a near 26% value share in 2010 - a share that has steadily increased since 2005. Colgate has achieved this enviable position through a truly global presence, as well as strong ties with the dental profession.

Colgate is a smaller player in deodorants, a category that is dominated by Unilever. In bath and shower, Colgate also faces strong competition from Unilever, as well as private label. More ground-breaking innovation would be required for Colgate to gain share in these highly competitive categories.

Colgate got a 1.5 percent boost in net sales in 2010, with unit volume rising by 3 percent, partly levelled by a unenthusiastic impact of foreign exchange of 1.5 percent.

Operating profit was unhelpfully influenced by a one-time charge of 271 million USD. Furthermore, Colgate increased its adspend by 8percent in 2010. Excluding one-off charges, 2010 operating profit increased by 5percent. (Belch 2011, 63)

Cutting New Categories

Dental care is a saturated market, with very little expansion forecast for the medium term. Globally, the sector can expect expansion of more than 2percent year-on-year to 2008, but this is considerably slower in developed markets such as the United Kingdom where expansion is marginal at just 0.2percent year-on-year to 2008. Within UK Dental care, the decline of manual toothbrushes by more than 5percent per year has significantly impacted expansion.

Brushing Up

Colgate has continued to innovate in manual toothbrushes and has maintained its second place in the United Kingdom market. In 2002 and 2003, it launched the Colgate Whitening and Active Angle toothbrushes in the United Kingdom. The whitening brush took advantage of the rising vanity trend for very white teeth to win sales. However, Colgate should consider product extension into power brushes where it trails significantly behind Gillette, Royal Phillips and Procter & Gamble (P&G)with less than 7percent of value sales.

P&G's acquisition of Gillette has given that combined company a clear ...