The

marketing
plan for
ColgatePalmolive
BUS4005
BA124020-1A
Ho Tsz Yi
Chow Wai Man
Ching Ka Yu
Cheung Gar Joun Michael
08-12-2014

The marketing plan for Colgate-Palmolive

1

Content

Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Executive Summary...................................................................................................................3
Situation Analysis.......................................................................................................................4
SWOT Analysis..........................................................................................................................6
Marketing Objectives.................................................................................................................8
Marketing Strategies..................................................................................................................9
Marketing Tactics.....................................................................................................................10
Marketing Budget.....................................................................................................................12
Marketing Control and Evaluation Marketing Performance....................................................13
Reference..................................................................................................................................14

BA124020-1A

The marketing plan for Colgate-Palmolive

2

Introduction

Colgate Toothpaste has been fighting bad breath and maintaining proper oral health for over
200 years. In the beginning, William Colgate starts a starch, soap, and candle business in
New York City since 1806. When William Colgate passed, his company was constantly to
introduce new the product such as perfumed soap and perfume/essences. As at 1873, Colgate
introduces first toothpastes in jars. The toothpastes have been improved over 100 years.
Nowadays, we still use Colgate toothpastes, which is a famous brand with tooth care. Colgate
is covered around 200 counties and sales surpassing US$15 billion.
Colgate has been working constantly with the retail partners and provides the superior
customer value. They are crate an attentive and satisfactory business image to create
customer delight. The customer can buy their product everywhere such as Manning, Watson,
supermarket and convenience store etc. All their products are the fast moving consumer
goods, which are the essential product for everyone's children to older. So their market
segmentation is very broad. They always used to demographic segments to base on age.
Consumers of different ages due to physiological, personality, hobbies, different economic
conditions, demand for consumer goods is often very different. Therefore, according to the
age of the market is divided into many different characteristics of consumer groups, such as
children's market, the youth market, middle market, the old market etc.

BA124020-1A

The marketing plan for Colgate-Palmolive

3

Executive Summary

In toothpaste market, there is lots of company to competition. With an array of 40 different

patented toothpastes and 13 classifications of oral care so that Colgate remains competitive in
the market place. The Colgate is over one hundred years old. Therefore, it is imperative to
keep Colgates brands fresh but maintain a rich history of quality products. The target market
for Colgate toothpaste is high-income parties because they really emphasize their health. The
following report looks at the Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief and will analyses marketing
situation and SWOT of Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief. This report is achieving marketing
goals to map out strategies and tactics. In addition to this, listing out the marketing budget
both is important in the marketing plan.
We introduce the brand for the history and past of the performance. Also, we analysis the
marketing situation with information on customer needs, target market, marketing offering
and the like. In terms of the SWOT analysis, this is clarifying the current situation in areas of
internal strengths and weaknesses, highlighting opportunities and threats. Marketing strategy
is marketing mix elements and explains how each responds to the SWOT. Also, the marketing
tactics is support marketing strategies by establishing a set of action programs on product,
pricing, distribution, and promotion. The budget is essentially a projected-and loss-statement.
Lastly, the marketing control and evaluation is outline the measures that will be used to
monitor progress and evaluate the marketing performance.
This is the marketing plan for the Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief. The marketing plan is
very significant of execution will bring in a lot of business.

BA124020-1A

The marketing plan for Colgate-Palmolive

4

Situation Analysis

For the Colgate, they have many products such as toothpaste, mouthwashes, and toothbrush,
but they are specially forced on the toothpaste and understand the customers needs and
wants. They are offering 25 different patented toothpastes in Hong Kong. Many people have
yellow teeth, sensitive teeth or just teeth with cavity problem. Also, in order to attract and
more suitable for children, they have been releasing some special toothpastes such as
different taste, cartoon characters for children. The most of toothpastes brands have varied
product can effectively solve the customer problem, but they are not specific to force the
detail of the problem. Colgate introduces different series toothpastes to match the customers
needs and wants such as optic white, sensitive pro-relief.

Specially, the sensitive pro-relief series can force different sensitive symptom, which have 5
toothpastes to divide different patient or customers. Those are exclusive Pro-Argin
formula. The series slogan is your sensitive toothpaste makes you enjoy the frozen taste. 14
days product risk with our money back guarantee. It is express the unique effectiveness of
products and target consumer psychology. It is more than other toothpaste brand because they
understand sensitive teeth is very common in Hong Kong. They strengthen the product to be
more effective match the customer needs. They are used differentiated marketing that a core
of the product basically the same, but the difference in performance and quality to meet the
basic needs of the customer to provide customers with a unique product.

Original toothpaste is basic sensitive toothpaste for early patient or customer. Sensitive tooth
should be careful to use a whitening product but Colgate has been research and development
the toothpaste combines with sensitive and whitening. Whitening toothpaste is a low abrasive
formula gently and effectively removes stains for who is a yellow and sensitive tooth. And
other three toothpastes are forced on different common symptoms. Enamel Repair toothpaste
is repairs sensitive teeth for long lasting protection against sensitivity that has an enamel
problem customer. Multi-protection toothpaste is more effective to clear the teeth and the
taste more fresh. Gums-protection toothpaste is more force protects the gums to against
sensitivity. It is a product advantage in similar products.

On the other hand, Colgates advantage is an excellent brand and a high of diversification of
the business.

BA124020-1A

The marketing plan for Colgate-Palmolive

This is the price of the sensitive toothpastes:
5

The sensitive toothpastes price is $39.9. Although the price expensive than other competitor,
the loyal customer still buy their product.
Besides, Colgate-Palmolive can thrive in the competitive environment because they are
thoughtful to design business strategy. They are acquired in a particular product category and
markets and maintain market leadership position. They gained slightly in value share to reach
close to 51% in 2013, which further consolidated its leadership in oral care. Also, they are
consistent with the company's core strengths and core competencies. Colgate positioned
several toothpastes so that people would like the products more like adding a different style
or taste to the toothpaste. Colgate repositions their products because with the way they
market and promote their products, consumers know that these products are way better than
other brands and competition that is out there.

BA124020-1A

The marketing plan for Colgate-Palmolive

6

SWOT Analysis

Strengths
Strengths describe the internal capabilities, resources, and positive situational factors of firm,
that is the advantages for achieving its objective. Colgate (-Palmolive) is a multinational,
which owns the international business. Its business is running diversification for establishing
a strong competitive position and increasing profit, such as Palmolive and Softlan.
Also, Colgate is very concern about the problems of oral health, so they had been researched
and developed the products of hygiene and protect. Their products of oral care are most
famous and specialized, which could obtain the bigger market share.
Furthermore, Colgate is a time-honored company that co-operate with the dentists for many
years. They have a professional team of dentists for improving the oral products, so the
customers have confidence and faith in their brand.
Weaknesses
Weaknesses describe the internal limitations, negative internal factors and negative situational
factors of a firm that is the barriers to meet its objective. According to the report of thirdquarter earnings, Colgate-Palmolives net profit was declined, which fell 0.5 percent to $
4.379 billion. That is, Colgate-Palmolive will lack of capital to operate in a short term, and
they are going to reorganize the distribution of expenditures.
As Colgate-Palmolive is a company of The United States, they need to realize the local
culture before they try to extend their overseas market. In order to satisfy the customers
needs and wants, Colgate-Palmolive would constitute the customized department for studying
the difference of civilization.
On the other hand, it is a large expense of hiring the professional teams, whose are the
dentists and researchers, etc. Colgate-Palmolive has been working with the dentists and
researchers to improve and develop the oral product that is the main labour cost.
Opportunities
Opportunities describe the favorable external factors of the firm, that may trigger the path to
advantage on its objective. Everyone knows that Colgate-Palmolive is an old and famous
brand, which has been obtaining the goodwill and customer loyalty. The public will confide
in the other product of Colgate-Palmolive, so they could expend their business on skin care,
besides personal care and home care.
There is no doubt that people have more value on their personal care as their health cognition
was grown by education. Therefore, this is the advantage of rolling out the superior products
on different lifestyle of people.
Cc should also consider broadening their businesss scope that could exploit Lateral
Spreading. This is one of the ways to expand the external business, which develops the
relevant business but does not exists the competitive relationship of Oral Care, For instance,
dental clinic organized of Colgate-Palmolive.
Threats
BA124020-1A

The marketing plan for Colgate-Palmolive

Threats describe current unfavorable external factors that are the challenge of a companys
7
performance.
From the report of THE JERUSALEM POST, the fake Colgate toothpaste was
imported from China and Thailand. It is a serious problem that will affect the trust of
customers purchase and the development of overseas market.
What is more serious is that Colgate-Palmolives toothpaste was discovered the ingredient is
including the harmful material. But, they had already cleared this delusion on media.
However, there are negative news and bad image form public.
It is known that Oral-B is the major competitor for many years. For the above reasons, it will
be the disadvantage in the competition between Colgate-Palmolive and Oral-B.

BA124020-1A

The marketing plan for Colgate-Palmolive

8

Marketing Objectives

We are here to set up 3 objectives include brand building, increasing sales turnover and
satisfying customer needs.

The purpose of this marketing plan is building brands. There is incredible value for
companies and corporations for brand building. Brands convey a uniform quality, credibility
and experience. The brands are more important today than in the past. A lot of consumer buy
brand even buys premium brands. The best branding is based on a strong idea to create brand
heat and product lust. When people have relationship with products, they will loyal to brands.
Brands can activate a passionate group of people to do something. Products cant really do
that.

Another purpose of this marketing plan is increasing 5% sales in 6 months. In business,

amount of sales turnover is very important because turnover is directly proportional to the
profit gained. The bigger the turnover of sales means greater profits.

Finally, satisfying customer needs is one that mostly focuses on what the customer needs as
opposed to just his wants and desires. This objective often has more of a long-term positive
effect on the company in the customers eyes.

BA124020-1A

The marketing plan for Colgate-Palmolive

9

Marketing Strategies

Colgate-Palmolive needs to formulate the marketing strategy for leading the processes to
achieve its objective. With the analysis of the situation and SWOT, Colgate-Palmolive found
the adjustment and improvement for continuing as follows.

As for brand building, Colgate-Palmolive should exploit its strength that is the famous series
of Oral Care, to increase the promotion of brand. In order to enhance the brand awareness,
Colgate-Palmolive conducts different promotion, for example, place advertisement on social
media, which could increase the exposure of brand, such as Facebook and internet.

The main reason why Colgate-Palmolive needs to reorganize the distribution of expenditures
is that its revenue was declined. So, the price of product may adjust for increasing the sale
volume that could also increase the resources of operation. In addition, that will not disturb
the quality of product as it will not decrease the professional labour, such as dentist and
researcher.

There is the opportunities to improve the quality and roll out the different type of product
whereby goodwill and customers loyalty of Colgate-Palmolive. To reach the objective for
satisfying the customers needs and wants, Colgate-Palmolive should match their lifestyle to
provide the product that aims to special problem, such as whitening, deep clean and bad
breath.

Of all the negative news, Colgate-Palmolive should defecate and illustrate the reaction
immediately that will be the threats to its reputation, such as an issue on newspaper and
companys website. It could avoid the customers worry about its product and consolidate the
competitive in the market. Furthermore, Colgate-Palmolive needs to increase the point of sale
that could enhance the brand awareness of the customer in new markets.

Mark
et

Share-

t oot
h

pas
te

BA124020-1A

The marketing plan for Colgate-Palmolive

10

Marketing Tactics

In terms of product, Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief that people use every day and have to
replace frequently. There are three different types of Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief
Toothpaste - with Pro Argin Technology. Other variants in the range are Colgate Sensitive
Pro-Relief Whitening Toothpaste, Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief Enamel Protect Toothpaste
and Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief Multi-Protection Toothpaste. The mode of action of
Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief is the Pro-Argin technology plugs and seals open dentine
tubules with a calcium-rich mineral layer. By the way, Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief life
cycle stages is maturity. At this stage of the lifecycle the product will be experiencing
increased competition and will need persuasive tactics to encourage consumers to choose
their product over their rivals. Any differential benefit will be essential to be clearly
communicated to the target audience.
PRODUCT CHARACTERISTICS

PRODUCT BENEFITS

Unique Pro-Argin technology based

on natural process of tubule occlusion

Significantly greater sensitivity

reduction withtwice - daily brushing
compared to control toothpaste with
potassium ions

Helps block pain stimuli such as tactile,

pressure and cold air

Instant relief when applied directly to

the sensitive tooth with the fingertip and
gently massaged for 1 minute

Clinical studies published in peerreviewed journal

Can be used after the Colgate

Sensitive Pro-Relief Desensitizing
Paste

With 1450ppm fluoride as sodium

monofluorophosphate

Caries Prevention

In terms of pricing, a company can adopt a number of pricing strategy, the pricing strategy
will usually be based on corporate objectives. Pricing should take into account the factors
into account contain competition, company objectives, target group and willingness to pay.
Firstly, Colgate- Palmolive exploits Competition Pricing to go into the market. Competition
Pricing is setting a price in comparison with competitors. Really a firm has three options and
these are to price lower, price the same or price higher. This pricing strategy will be able to
attract a number of the customers who use the competitors products to change to employ our
products.
Another pricing strategy we use is Psychological Pricing. The seller here will consider the
psychology of price and the positioning of price within the market place. Colgate- Palmolive
will charge $39.9 instead of $40. The reason why this method work because customers will
still think they purchased their product under $40, even thought it was a dollar away. Pricing
is an impediment, when the consumer shopping. Therefore, we must utilize different type of
pricing strategies to satisfy the market.

BA124020-1A

The marketing plan for Colgate-Palmolive

In terms of distribution, Colgate- Palmolive selects indirect distribution. Indirect distribution
11
involves
distributing your product by the use of an intermediary for example a manufacturer
selling to a wholesaler and then on to the retailer.

Manufactur
er

Wholesaler

Retailer

Consumer

At the same time, Colgate- Palmolive makes use of intensive distribution. An intensive
distribution strategy is a plan that places products in many different locations for distribution.
Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief may be found in dozens of different retail outlets in any
given area. The purpose of this type of strategy is to put so much of a product in so many
locations that a customer will come across Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief frequently,
making it easy for them to remember and buy the product. Colgate- Palmolive of toothpaste
can be found at the grocery store, the drug store, the convenience store, or a retail store. With
such intensive distribution, customers are seldom forced to choose another brand. Intensive
distribution can make our product a household name.

There are two major promotional ways of Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief. Advertising is a
main promotion tool which is any non personal paid form of communication using any form
of mass media. Colgate- Palmolive utilizes buzz marketing create opinion leaders to serve as
brand ambassadors, who spread the word about Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief. ColgatePalmolive always finds the dental experts become an opinion leader because dental experts
are authoritative. The customers are willing to admit the suggestion of dental experts.
Advertising include TV, the internet and the like. Apart from advertising, the Internet
Marketing is also very important. Promoting and selling your services online using various
forms of online marketing techniques such as banner advertisements, videos or social media.
Colgate- Palmolive set up the website for Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief. There are videos
and medical report to give the information about the teeth. The website not only has user
share their experience, but also accords opportunity visitor to apply the test of teeth. ColgatePalmolive also designed the slogan Word of Care. All in all, consumers can obtain instant
information on our products to aid them in their crucial purchase decision.

BA124020-1A

The marketing plan for Colgate-Palmolive

12

Marketing Budget

BA124020-1A

The marketing plan for Colgate-Palmolive

Marketing Control and Evaluation

Marketing Performance

13

In the marketing control, we have three sides to control and improve. For the sales control,
we need to increase the sales volume since we have to keep our market share in the maximize
share. So we can renew the monthly our customers purchase which can keep on counting our
customer flow rate. We can add up the cost of sales percentage in total of sales, which can
control our prices in market.

For the advertising efficiency control, in order to improve the efficiency of advertising
managers, we can evaluation of the customer with our advertising content and effects. The
customer changes attitudes before and after the advertising that can more understand the
customers needs and wants.

Besides, the promotion efficiency control can analysis our promotion effective. For example,
we can analysis our promotion sales percentage in total of sales to evaluate our sales
promotion. The collect rate of coupon can analysis our product attractive for the customers.

BA124020-1A

The marketing plan for Colgate-Palmolive

14

Reference

Colgate professional
http://www.colgateprofessional.com.hk/
Why brand building is important http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/05/27/whybrand-building-is-important/
How to Increase Sales Turnover
http://ariasena.blogspot.hk/2012/02/how-to-increase-sales-turnover.html
Colgate professional
http://www.colgateprofessional.com.hk/
Learnmarketing.net
http://www.learnmarketing.net
Distributionstrategy.org
http://www.distributionstrategy.org/Intensive-Distribution-Strategy.html

http://news.singtao.ca/toronto/2014-10-25/finance1414216665d5296932.html
Fake Colgate toothpaste from Far East caught by Health Ministry
http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Fake-Colgate-toothpaste-from-Far-East-caught-byHealth-Ministry-383514
Annual Reports
http://investor.colgate.com/annual.cfm
Colgate-Palmolive Company 2008 Annual Report
http://www.colgate.com/app/Colgate/US/Corp/Annual-Reports/2008/Dear-ColgateShareholder.cvsp

BA124020-1A