Question

In August 1992, after three years of development, Colgate-Palmolive (CP) is about to add a new, technologically superior toothbrush, tentatively named Precision, to its existing toothbrush line. The product manager has to recommend positioning, branding, and communication strategies to the CP Oral Care Division general manager and support her recommendations with economic analyses.

Case Discussion Questions:

1. What changes are occurring in the toothbrush category? Assess Colgate-
   Palmolive’s competitive position.
2. How is the toothbrush market segmented? Compare consumer behavior
   between highly involved and less involved consumers for toothbrushes.
3. What are the arguments for launching Precision as (a) a niche products and (b) a
   mainstream brand? The objectives of this question are: (1), to emphasize the
   importance and marketing program implications of determining whether a new
   product represents a big breakthrough idea or a line extension, and (2), to
   consider the relative merits of emphasizing a corporate brand umbrella versus
   an individual brand name when launching a new product.
4. What marketing recommendations would you make to Steinberg?

Answer 1

As the people are getting more health conscious and are ready to spend significant amount for their personal hygiene and well being, so people tend to spend more on toothbrush. Companies like Sensodyne and Colgate have come up with expensive brushes with effective bristles in order to give better cleaning for the teeth. Moreover, electronic brushes are also available in the market where the color of bristles changes when it wears out and automatic brushes which run on battery.

There are many toothbrush manufacturing companies and the toothbrush are the products which does not require high involvement as most of companies come up with less differentiated products, so there is no brand loyalty towarsd toothbrush amongst the consumers. As a result, the market of toothbrush is highly competitive with a non-differentiated product.

Toothbrush market is segmented based on age group. There are toothbrush for kids , and adults based on age. There are medicated and non-medicated toothbrush based on user requirements and health conditions. There are are manual and automatic toothbrush based on the lifestyle of the user whether the user is comfort oriented or laborious.

As the toothbrush is a non-differentiated product with almost similar features in all the toothbrush brands, so the customers are not able to differentiate one brand from another. Moreover, the toothbrush is a commodity whcih does not require high level of involvement. Customers generally do not research much while looking for toothbrush. So as per Ansoff's model, it is a Habitual Buying Behaviour with less involvement and low level of differentiation.

Prcision should be launched as a niche product as it is a technologically superior toothbrush meant for a few technological oriented consumers. As the potential customers are quite few in number, so it would not create any doubt in the minds of the customers so launching it as a niche product would be a viable option.

Steinberg should launch Precision as a niche product specifically for technological oriented customers so as not to create any doubt in the minds of the customers. It should be more expensive compared to other toothbrush brands, so as to target only a selected set of customers and other major customers would buy the ususal toothbrush only.