Marketing Confetti by Jasginder Singh

Pepsodent Center Fresh
Thursday, August 23, 2007

Finally! finally HUL (Levers) has come up with the gel and fluoride combo under the fluoride category. When Levers had launched the gel-fluoride combo I had written about it in my marketing blog, the post can be accessed here

What I had discussed in that post was that the product was per se heading for a failure just because it was positioned in a wrong way; launching the gel-fluoride combo in gel segment.

Now Levers may have come up with the combo in fluoride segment due to just failure of Close or because it really understood the difference or maybe its just another fighting platform for Colgate war. But whatever, it has two brands in market and each offering almost similar product but marketed fewer than two entirely different consumer segments!

For me the ideal ad campaign would have been where the mother stresses the benefits of paste and the younger one(s) excited at freshness aspect and they are shown at peace preferably physically too e.g. younger one giving a hug and both oozing the happiness and energy or both giving a high five etc. But the current campaign is decent enough.

Now we know that the sales margin would have been higher for the product in initial months making it reach the shelves of good amount of retailers, and going by the plain Pepsodent packing or retailer pursuing, some buyers would have picked it only to find the new combo at home. Now the job is for the product innovation guys, if they have the product made good the sales registers would start ticking! This stage was the one that the gel one would not have reached.

Labels: Launch