Colgate Max Fresh

Colgate Max Fresh

The Colgate-Palmolive Company was attempting to bring Colgate Max Fresh to market in China and Mexico, where it was successfully marketed in the United States. Based on the launch in the United States, Colgate achieved a record of 34.8 percent value share. In attempts to mirror this success, Colgate was trying to find the best methods to increase share in these regions through product presentation, pricing, and advertising. In the United States, the idea of Colgate Max Fresh was based on a product enhancement, breath strips that were quite popular in the United States at the time. In China and Mexico, Colgate had several challenges ahead of them: marketing the benefits of the strips, tapping markets where therapeutic toothpastes were more popular rather than those with cosmetic benefits, and reducing Crest’s market share, their prime competitor.

Despite the challenges Colgate faced, they were equipped with tools that could make it possible to overcome. A strength that Colgate-Palmolive has is that they are a global brand and formed a partnership with a local Chinese company, which could lead to more intimate relations within the region. Another strength of Colgate is having the financial resources to tailor their advertising to the market as well as innovating products for each region through the Consumer Innovation Centers. At the time, Colgate had significant share in China though in part due to a partnership, and had a significant share in Mexico so that advertising would not have to be focused on building brand awareness but rather product awareness. Lastly, Colgate filed a patent for including breath strips in their toothpaste, so competitors would not be able to incorporate the same technology giving them a clear advantage.

Some weaknesses of Colgate were their extensive testing and advertising for regional customization. For example, in China they decided to get another high profile celebrity sponsor to promote the product. Also they had extensive testing in regards to the shade of green the product should be and also packaging methods. Costs could be reduced, if testing was limited to aspects of the product that increased sales. The organizational structure can be interpreted as a weakness, since there was a disconnect between the global business development