Acknowledging the tremendous growth in India’s oral care market, Colgate-Palmolive has relaunched “Colgate Strong Teeth” toothpaste, with cutting-edge arginine technology.
But unlike previous campaigns, Colgate has gone toothless! The ad features a toothless grandmother. Colgate wanted to create a new narrative, create something refreshing while landing a preparation that is truly relevant. The ad’s target audience is the mother of a child who’s in the 6 – 12 age category.
Anaswar Rajagopal, marketing (Dentifrice), Colgate-Palmolive, revealed the idea of using a toothless granny, talking about the benefits of toothpaste, is clutter-breaking. “The brand wanted to create a narrative in the category, which was disruptive. We have tried to grab the attention of our audience because this creative idea is unusual.” Harshad Rajadhyaksha, chief creative officer, of Ogilvy, explained the whole disruption here is that the world’s largest toothpaste brand, is using a toothless lady. “Because of its disruption value, people want to know what this granny has to say.”
The ad shows the grandmother’s daily tasks are performed by her cutting machine, that is, her granddaughter. The idea of the enduring grandmother–granddaughter relationship, as per the brand, is quite powerful and unusual. Rajagopal said there’s no narrative around nourishment and the benefits of teeth. “When we spoke to our consumers about this, they were quite excited. When it comes to mothers, they are always aware of their children’s health. But they usually don’t know about teeth nourishment. We felt that we had an opportunity to educate the country about how teeth can also be nourished.”
Kainaz Karmakar, chief creative officer, of Ogilvy India, said one never realizes their lack of nutrition until their set of nature-provided teeth isn’t the best. “All you need to do is to have the intention to stand out. We decided to step out of the comfort zone that this category has. We decided to stay close to our engaging message – nutrition of teeth.”
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