Colgate is pretty much synonymous with toothpaste in India. It controls half the market, both by volume and value. Its nearest competitor, HUL, is just a third of Colgate’s size in this category. (View Highlight)
But that’s not quite the story in toothpaste. While lack of penetration is not the problem, just one in every five urban households brushes twice a day, according to a presentation Colgate-Palmolive made to analysts last week. What’s worse is that every second rural household doesn’t brush daily. Rural households only brush two to three times a week, compared to five times for the country as a whole. (View Highlight)
And worryingly for toothpaste—and toothbrush—makers, a lot of them still rely on datoon, or twigs traditionally used as an oral-hygiene tool. (View Highlight)
What better time to “educate” and “convince” consumers than when they are highly impressionable and yet to form habits? (View Highlight)
And starting at a small scale of about 0.45 million, it has now reached 170 million children. And this is not reaching them through one piece of advertising or one piece of content. This is about reaching them in their schools, in the formative years of 6 to 12 when habits get built. The Bright Smiles, Bright Future program is the consistent investments that Colgate has done and one that we intend to double down on. (View Highlight)
Attempts at premiumisation aside, Colgate-Palmolive has to get Indians to buy more and more toothpaste. At 180gm per capita annually, India has among the lowest toothpaste consumption in the world. Other developing countries like Brazil and the Philippines use 3.4X and 1.8X more. (View Highlight)
Bringing that number up means getting consumers in cities to brush their teeth twice a day, and their counterparts elsewhere to do it at least once. (View Highlight)
