CRM

Presented to : Mrs. Sonal Katewa

Presented By: SHAILJA SINGH FW 11/13

The brand name Colgate is synonymous with toothpaste. This world-renowned brand is sold in more than 200 countries. In India, the company has successfully replicated the strong brand image and awareness in the minds of consumers. Today, Colgate is a house hold name in India. The company manufactures and markets its oral care, personal care and household care products under the Colgate-Palmolive brand name. Colgate India earns around 93% of its revenues from the oral care segment.

Charcoal, neem sticks, husk, salt and powder mixtures have been some of the traditional form of oral hygiene products used in rural India. But these products are losing favour, especially due to the efforts of many organizations and companies, foremost among them, Colgate. The company claims to have persuaded about 300 million people into using oral hygiene products in the country for the last 25 years.

Oral hygiene continues to be under aggressive competition, with sales increasing each year making it at Rs. 3,000 crs market. The toothpaste segment is largely a two player industry, Colgate Palmolive & HUL accounting for 85% of the entire market.

ORAL CARE Toothpaste: Colgate Total 12 colgate cibaca Colgate Sensitive Colgate Active salt Colgate Max Fresh Colgate Fresh Energy Gel Tooth Brush: Colgate360 Colgate Zigzag Colgate Cibaca Toothpowder

Known as one of the leading brands for oral care in and around the world, Colgate soon got popular in rural India as well. Infact the brand has become so generic with the product itself that it is not surprising to find rural consumers asking for Colgate when they buy toothpaste or tooth powder or tooth brush. The company, on its part, says that the rural markets account for about one third of its total sales.

For marketing to rural consumers you need to persuade them to try and adopt products that they have never used before, rural India presents huge opportunities to focus on expanding its rural distribution. Colgate was heading for a total monopoly in the rural markets, and it was leaving no stone unturned for doing the same.

BY COLGATE
IN RURAL AREAS

Whole seller Retailer Vans Weekly Haats Bazaars Melas

Aggressive is the only word that could perfectly describe the advertising and sales promotion strategy of Colgate. Colgate stepped up its rural promotion drives with IDA (Indian Dental Association) to add value. This has been the stepping stone to the high penetration in rural minds. Since 1976, Colgate has been doing this through its rural promotion vans and Young India, Bright Smiles, Bright Futures, schools dental education program.

High quality products was always a plus point of Colgate all they had to do was to now tap the still unattended rural markets and change their habits i.e. from the usage of manjans and datoon to toothpaste and tooth powder. In 1998, Colgate contacted 6 million people in 20,000 villages of which 15,000 villages had not experienced the availability of toothpaste and toothpowder.

Suggesting and implementing a rural promotional scheme was what Colgate called Sampark for, as they were specialist in rural advertising category. Sampark had limited budget to their disposal. Going in for mass media would not prove to be costly but the reach would be limited as, still only very few people own and possess a T.V. or a radio.

Sampark wanted something that had far and wide reach that is why Sampark decided to do their advertising by door to door selling. Sampark hired people from a certain locality who knew the local language, jargons . This not only helped Colgate communicate easily with the consumer but was also effective in sending the right message across to the rural consumer, the other plus point of this message was that the communication gap was reduced to a large extend. These people would move about in the villages telling the people about the pros of using advanced oral care products and the cons involved in tradition oral care system, this was quite difficult as rural people always felt that natural was the best. Colgate trained these salesmen to convince the rural population and make them try the free samples that Colgate was distributing.

The next best option that Sampark choose after door to door selling was publicity vans also called as A/V vans. Seventy promotion vans do the rounds of the country and educate rural folks on oral hygiene products such as toothpaste, toothpowder and toothbrushes. These vans used to travel from village to village and depending upon the market day in that specific village. These vans also did a number of other activities at a time such as spot selling, sampling, retailing etc. The vans used to be parked in strategic locations, they were highly decorated so as to get more curious eyes and in the process educate the rural folk.

The roving Colgate vans, after screening a 22 minute film on oral hygiene that explains how to use the product, offer sampling at stalls setup near the van. 60 percent of the towns were covered by Colgate with their own distribution strategy and the remaining 40 percent was covered by other distributors. There are puppet shows done in the villages educating the villagers about the plus points of using modern hygiene products.

Educational films were also shown in between movies in theatres, these are usually 10-40 secondary which were educational and used to feature either actors, local lenders, for a farmer just like the ones viewing the documentary, later on after the movie would end free samples were distributed to the audience, these tactics are also used in Haats and Melas thought the length and breadth of India. The thrust towards promotion through schools has done wonders in changing the awareness levels as well as a shift towards the new decision-makers in the rural families.

The Colgate rural initiative, targeted at rural areas with a population between thirty and a hundred thousand people. The dental checkup camps were supervised by teams of dentists and organizers who interacted with over 1 lakh of people teaching them the benefits of oral hygiene and also promoted Colgate toothpaste, with a strategy of distributing free samples.

Colgate also tied up with ITC E-Choupal and Rotary to spread the message of dental care and oral hygiene to villages across India. The campaign successfully targeted over 156 villages of in Uttar Pradesh in association with project Disha and 36 villages in Maharashtra. In addition dental checkup camps were also conducted in Dussera Mela at Pushkar and other parts of Rajasthan.

By offering Colgate tooth powder, in more affordable packs which cost 40% less of the same quantity. The introduction of larger pouch packs at lower price and combo-packs with a free toothbrush also attracted consumers.

The small sachet packs are the examples of price sensitivity, it is important to understand the price sensitivity of the consumers of the rural areas. Colgate launched small sachet packs for rural areas, also the variation in price kept for the Colgate toothpowder was according to the rural market, its available for Rs 32, 18 and 9.

In the slum areas, the Oral Health Month program sought to benefit people by laying emphasis on good oral hygiene habits. Several adults as well as children in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bangalore and Chennai, underwent free dental checkups and learnt about the long-term benefits of taking care of their teeth. The Oral Health Month went beyond the urban landscape to benefit people living in rural India. 1,100 villages were covered under this program and free dental check-up camps were conducted. The Oral Health Month was a great stride forward towards creating a month-long focus on the importance of good Oral Care practices that go a long way in maintaining good oral hygiene and the usage of Colgate.

Colgate Palmolive India, is close to celebrating its platinum jubilee in India, and yet the brand remains as fresh in consumers minds as when it first entered this market. Its toothpaste brands have captured slightly more than half of the Indian oral care segment.
Its efforts great promotion and marketing strategies helped the brand to establish a strong foothold in rural areas as well.

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Thank You Have a nice day!!!