Marketing Principles For Colgate’s New Herbal Tooth Care Product In Australia

Overview of Colgate Company

Colgate has been an umbrella brand since years to buy oral hygiene products such as toothbrushes, toothpastes, mouthwash and dental creams.  The American conglomerate Colgate –Palmolive is the manufacturer of Colgate’s oral hygiene products. William Colgate was the founder of the company which originally was a dealer of soaps. In the year 1873, the company first started to sell oral hygiene products. It has been found that Colgate is the only brand that is preferred by more than half of the households. The company has a global market share of more than 56 %. Colgate – Palmolive established in Australia in the year 1921 and continuing to assist the parent company to become a truly consumer products company (colgatepalmolive.com 2018).  The present report analyses the marketing principles for a new herbal tooth care product of Colgate to be launched in Australia. The report also covers topics like market segmentation, target market and marketing mix strategies of the product and concludes by giving and overview of the entire report.

The Australian head office of Colgate company is situated in Sydney, and the manufacturing sites of the company include New South Wales, Queensland, Villawood and Labrador. More than 480 people work in Australia at this company(colgatepalmolive.com 2018).  The marketing strategy of Colgate focuses on people, performance and planet and aligns these factors with the objectives of the company. The company has been attracting the customers towards its oral care, fabric care, personal care and surface care products. The business operations of the company in Australian context is held by Mr. Chris Pederson and Mr. Paul Rubenach(colgatepalmolive.com 2018).

Since the Colgate company is about to launch a new oral care product in Australia it is required to know and understand the existing oral care market of the country. In Australia the oral hygiene experienced a significant recovery in the year 2003 with extra sales of 9 %. This growth is probably due to the improved exchange rates against the US dollar of the Euro currency (sharetechnews.com 2018). The oral care industry of Australia occupies almost 60 % of the market share because people these days are extremely health conscious. New incorporation in the oral care products such as the antibacterial qualities, variety of flavors and the whitening qualities have added momentum to the sales of oral care products(sharetechnews.com 2018). The oral care industry especially the toothpaste industry earns around $ 108.8 billion dollars per year. The major competitors of the toothpaste industry in Australia are Crest, Sensodyne, Pepsodent, Oral- B and others(sharetechnews.com 2018). The market share held by the Colgate company is almost double of these companies because of the company’ innovative, healthy and cost-friendly range of products.

The Colgate company is going to launch its first herbal toothpaste which will increase the sales rates of the company as anticipated by the company experts. The company considers to launch the herbal toothpaste because people have become highly conscious of not using fluoride toothpaste because a regular use of fluoride containing toothpastes decay the teeth enamel and can also cause damage to the gums (Swetha, Priya and Gayathri 2018). The herbal qualities containing toothpaste on the other hand has many beneficial effects and it will be liked by the customers too. The Australian market has few positive sides which can make the product introduction a success. There is demand for herbal/ natural products among customers (M.S 2014). People desire these products because these contain no artificial color or harmful chemicals. People find it relying to apply the herbal products on children too without any fear of side effects. The best advantage is the dental practitioners also recommend herbal toothpastes to people who have any oral or dental problem (Hosadurga et al.2017). Before Colgate no company had launched such variety in their products and in this respect there are high chances of success for this product in the Australian market.

Oral Care Industry in Australia

There are no such specific target customers for herbal toothpastes. All those people (probably all) who use toothpaste fall under the target customer category. However still there are some specifications in the demographic, psychographic and geographic areas The basic target group is based 10-70 years old. When analyzed based on the psychographic status of people, those ones who are conservative, believers and conventional, motivated by principles and knowledge will be influenced by this herbal product the most. They may be the parents of the family who care for the safety and protection of their children the most (Edgar, Huhman and Miller 2017). These are the traditional people who stick to the brand they prefer (Desai et al. 2015). This herbal toothpaste of Colgate is targeted towards these people who would be the life –long customers of the company.

The demographic segmentation of target customers includes the variables of gender, age, education and income. Both male and female come under this group of age around 29-39 years’ old. Usually people belonging to the middle class with medium or lower income will be driven by this new cost –friendly and health-friendly product. Those people in this group who are suffering from dental problems will be the first line purchasers of this product (Jadhav, Lokhande and Nikam 2018). The geographical segmentation suggests that the product will please the people of coastal cities like Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney more because the population is extremely high in these places and inevitably the health and dental problems are also high in these parts of the country.

The Product must be different from the other toothpastes in the market. The first task should be to display the newly designed logo and package to boost up the brand awareness among people.  First people need to know how the new product is different. The advanced features of the product should be highlighted but having strong research base. The next step is to place the product in the market from where the customers can avail the product. The retail shops, departmental stores even in the doctors’ chambers should not stay unreached.  The product must be available in every part of the country including the online presence. The promotion of the product can be done via electronic media channels, broadcast media, newspaper and social media advertisements, health magazines and many others (Hilman, Hanaysha and Ghani 2017). Having a product website is another good option to promote the product. The product must be cost-efficient because it is designed primarily for the common people and the it should offer discounts on its first launch so that people can get the opportunity to have a short try on the product and understand its usefulness (Dudu and Agwu 2014).

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that toothpaste is the most vibrant segment of the oral care market. Constant evolution and experimentation to launch new and better products increase the market and revenues. The craze for herbal products among people has arisen mostly due to the rising awareness of health issues and cleanliness. The herbal quality containing toothpastes are accepted without any worry by all age groups and moreover when the new product is offered by a reliable brand like Colgate, the rates of acceptability is more than anything else.

Reference 

colgatepalmolive.com 2018. Colgate-Palmolive – Global Household & Consumer Products. [online] Colgatepalmolive.com. Available at: https://www.colgatepalmolive.com/ [Accessed 17 Sep. 2018].

Desai, P., Kruger, E., Trolio, R. and Tennant, M., 2015. Western Australian schools access to dentally optimal fluoridated water. Australian dental journal, 60(1), pp.112-118.

Dudu, O.F. and Agwu, M.E., 2014. A review of the effect of pricing strategies on the purchase of consumer goods. International Journal of Research in Management, Science & Technology, 2(2), pp.88-102.

Edgar, T., Huhman, M. and Miller, G.A., 2017. Where is the toothpaste? A systematic review of the use of the product strategy in social marketing. Social Marketing Quarterly, 23(1), pp.80-98.

Hilman, H., Hanaysha, J.R. and Ghani, N.H.A., 2017. Analyzing the relationship between advertising and sales promotion with brand equity. Asian International Journal of Social Sciences, 17(2), pp.88-103.

Hosadurga, R., Boloor, V.A., Rao, S.N. and MeghRani, N., 2017. Journal of Traditional and Complementary Medicine. Journal of Traditional and Complementary Medicine xxx, p.1e7.

Jadhav, R.S., Lokhande, S.S. and Nikam, R.J., 2018. HERBAL MOUTH WASH: AN UPDATE REVIEW.

M.S., 2014. Comparison of antimicrobial potential of various herbal dentifrices. Int J Dent Med Res| SEPT-OCT, 1(3), p.41.

Ratheesh,

sharetechnews.com (2018). Global Toothpaste Market Manufacturer 2018 – Colgate, Crest, Aquafresh, Sensodyne, Aim, CCA Industries, Church & Dwight – Share Tech News. [online] Share Tech News. Available at: https://www.sharetechnews.com/29334/global-toothpaste-market-manufacturer-2018-colgate-crest-aquafresh-sensodyne-aim-cca-industries-church-dwight/ [Accessed 17 Sep. 2018].

Swetha, I., Priya, V.V. and Gayathri, R., 2018. Benefits of herbal medicine in oral care. Drug Invention Today, 10(7).