Unique products need to be uniquely communicated!

Of all the products in the through the day by consumers across the world, toothbrushes have traditionally been a low involvement category. Consumers don’t think or talk about it to others. In fact, the concept of word-of-mouth has been non-existential in this category.

Keeping in line with this, dental care giant Colgate has opened up unique opportunities with the launch of the new Colgate Slim Soft Charcoal toothbrush.

Colgate Slim Soft Charcoal is a first of its kind toothbrush, with black aesthetics never seen before. The toothbrush comes with black bristles infused with real charcoal and compared to ordinary end rounded bristles has 17 times slimmer bristle tips that help remove plaque bacteria.

Colgate has also devised an unusual campaign to communicate this unique offering to its consumers. Adgully caught up with a senior spokesperson from Colgate India to know more about the product and campaign.

The said spokesperson states that black bristles in a category associated with white bristles are highly disruptive and this presented Colgate with an opportunity of creating brand visibility and advocacy through disruptive communication techniques. Elaborating further on the idea and rationale of the campaign, he said, “To bring this alive, the approach was to generate curiosity and intrigue amongst the Key Opinion Leaders. The objective of the campaign was to create schema disruption, leveraging the colour black. This was achieved by turning every day white items - such as eggs, newspapers, tissues – into black. These daily items were sent out on different days without any mention of Colgate or the toothbrush. On the last day the brand was revealed, elaborating that one’s toothbrush has now turned black as well. All the campaign elements were tagged with the hashtag #whattheblack to further amplify visibility on digital platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Blogs. The campaign moniker #whattheblack through the digital platforms further assisted in developing user generated content. The campaign that was initially targeted towards 200 KOL’s got amplified to 23.8 million consumers! Never before witnessed in this category, using an innovative approach (such as this) to generate brand advocacy”.

He says that the objective of the campaign was thus to create word-of-mouth and build brand advocates. Sharing insights of the brief given to the agency to devise the communication plans, he said, “The toothbrush category had never before seen a black toothbrush with charcoal infused bristles – a disruption in itself. To take this unique product to consumers, the communication technique had to be disruptive as well. To achieve this, using the digital medium was essential to generate curiosity and surprise and thus be a conversation starter”.

The launch of Colgate SlimSoft Charcoal toothbrush is being supported by a fully integrated 360 degree marketing campaign including robust print, broadcast, digital and shopper engagement programs. “The launch is a focused approach towards growing Colgate’s leadership in the toothbrush category, with the present market share of 43.6% (YTD June 2014)”, he stated.

He believes that with the advent of new tools of communications, the digital media channel has increasingly become an integral part of the communications mix. With the proliferation of social media, consumers are now increasingly social and conversing with brands. This platform brings an opportunity to build lasting relationships with consumers who could become the most vocal champions or brand advocates. If you have a great product or service, consumers are curious about your brand and often reach out to you through social media.

Working on these lines, they devised a special digital campaign #whattheblack which is a unique approach to bring alive a category that often witnesses feature related communication. Speaking on the usage of digital and other media he said, “Beyond traditional marketing techniques, through this campaign, Colgate reached out to key opinion leaders for building advocacy. For the first time the digital medium was innovatively used to launch a new product - through teasers, user generated content, creating conversations”.

The campaign was conceptualized by Red Fuse Communications, WPP’s full-service integrated global agency dedicated to serving all of Colgate-Palmolive’s brands worldwide. The campaign was executed by Candid Marketing.

Speaking about the idea behind the campaign, Shubha George, CEO India, Red Fuse said, “When it comes to toothbrushes, communication is often restricted to product benefits. Over the years now, Brand Colgate has become synonymous in offering innovative and technologically advanced products, just like Colgate SlimSoft Charcoal. This toothbrush has unique characteristics – black and super slim bristles – which showed potential to be explored innovatively. We leveraged the ‘black quotient’ of the toothbrush with the #whattheblack. A black bristled toothbrush is both extraordinary and unexpected. So are black eggs, black newspapers and black tissue papers. The aim here was to create an element of surprise by amazing the target audience with these items, ultimately revealing the black bristled Colgate SlimSoft Charcoal toothbrush”.

Amrita Kumar, Managing Partner, Candid Marketing mentions that, the launch of Colgate Slim Soft Charcoal was an execution heavy campaign; it required reaching out to a huge number of KOL’s within tight delivery timelines across the country. The challenge, she said was to present real everyday ‘white’ items into ‘black’. “As we explored probable options, we experimented in turning favorite originals - vanilla ice cream and white mint - into the black avatar, without losing out the traditional flavors. As we assessed available options, we finally zeroed in on daily items such as - eggs, newspapers, tissue papers and paper cups. It was critical to ensure that all the items were delivered simultaneously to the KOL’s across the country, in order to reveal the toothbrush on the final day”, she added. 

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