Colgate SWOT Analysis

Quang Huy Đào
5 min readNov 14, 2020

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In the event that I ask you which is the principal toothpaste brand that strikes a chord, you won’t require a lot of deduction to think of the name of Colgate. All around the globe, the oral cleanliness brand has gained notoriety for helping people to have wonderful grins and outstanding white teeth. For a brand that previously went to the market more than 100 years back, Colgate is as yet solid in the business’ driving position.

How did Colgate become the most notable item in the oral consideration field? What’s more, how might it keep the high status that nearly appears to be rugged? A huge contributing element would be Colgate’s publicizing methodology that elevated the ideal grin to be another norm for human wellbeing. That, yet the organization likewise centered around helping clients with oral cleanliness and training.

In this article, I will show you the inside and out investigation of the Colgate promoting methodology and why it helped Colgate accomplish its present top situation on the toothpaste market. History, mission, and current advertising exercises would all be incorporated, so you are in for a useful exercise. We should grin splendid and begin!

Colgate Advertising Strategy

Colgate introduction

Colgate is an American organization that spends significant time in oral cleanliness items, for example, toothpaste, toothbrushes, dental floss, and mouthwashes. Fabricated and claimed by Colgate-Palmolive, the primary Colgate toothpaste was sold in 1873 in New York, eighteen years after the passing of the organization’s originator — William Colgate. The organization recently sold cleanser.

Colgate sells through an assortment of retail and discount accomplices, wholesalers in North America, Europe, Latin American, Asia Pacific, and Africa. The all out brand worth of Colgate-Palmolive is assessed at about $62 billion, and the income is about $15.69 billion by Forbes. In 2015, Colgate was the main brand on the planet bought by the greater part of the worldwide family units. Its worldwide market infiltration was almost half, with 40 million new family units buying the brand’s items every year.

As a main purchaser items organization, Colgate (or Colgate-Palmolive) has focused on propelling innovation that can adjust to the buyer’s changing necessities all through the world. Its will likely utilize innovation to make items that can keep improving the personal satisfaction for clients all over the place. Forbes positions Colgate number 69 on the rundown of the most important brands on earth.

With a long history, Colgate has become a commonly recognized name in the oral cleanliness industry while continually acquainting new items with general society. The name itself has been commoditized, as you can go to any side of the world and still discover Colgate items existing. Colgate additionally keeps on being the biggest kind of revenue for the parent organization, making up around 47% of the absolute deals worldwide.

Colgate’s Strengths

  • Brand visibility: Being the household name in the oral hygiene industry, Colgate has high brand visibility and recall. The company has done wonderful work in advertising and promoting products to gain a strong and loyal customer base. This is a key factor for Colgate to compete with other players like P&G, HUL, and even the movement of local products.
  • Efficient supply chain: Colgate has a sophisticated distribution network in both rural and urban areas, which ensures that it reaches a wide range of customers with products always available. Product availability is a major factor in the highly competitive market since customers can switch brands very easily.
  • Product line: Colgate has products in toothpaste, toothbrushes, mouthwashes, kid products, professional specialty products, and prescription-only products for a full range of oral care. In the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) world, the more in-depth the product line is, the more chance for success since it can reduce the cost of logistics.
  • Financial: Being more than one century old and having operations in 200 countries has established a strong financial base for Colgate. Not to mention, it has support from the parent company. This is a strong strength to take on other competitors.
  • Market share: Colgate has managed to hold a huge market share with high penetration over the years. Some of the brand’s products remain to be the market leaders in particular regions.

Colgate’s weaknesses

  • Saturated market: With many new players, both international and domestic fighting in the personal oral care segment, the market becomes smaller, and there is little space left to grow. When every market is fighting for each other’s market share, Colgate will face a lot of competition.
  • Cost control: Colgate needs a high cost of operation due to the gigantic properties and machine. The profits can decrease, but the operation chain still needs to work constantly. And because of this, Colgate products can be priced higher than the rivals’.
  • Limited brand’s potential: Colgate is entirely under a particular product category and segment, which means it has limited offerings to the customers, unlike the competitors who can reach to many other fields like P&G or HUL.

Colgate’s opportunities

  • Expanding the product line: By using the existing production line and stretching the existing product categories, the company can increase sales, create new offerings, and earn values from different segments.
  • Strengthening the business’s position through mergers and acquisitions: Global companies with large capital has a smart strategy to sustain and expand overseas by acquiring rising companies. However, Colgate is yet to capitalize on the market by using this strategy.
  • Tapping into the rural market of developing countries: With urban markets becoming more saturated with competition, the rural markets become the untapped gold mine that Colgate can use to reap profits. However, it needs to be quick since others can have the same idea.
  • Usage rate: The company plays an important role in making people aware of the optimum usage rate of the products. This can be done through advertising, word of mouth, and doctor advice. Colgate also needs to forecast this number to effectively penetrate new markets.

Colgate’s threats

  • Market competition: With a staggering number of new brands, it can be difficult for Colgate to differentiate itself from others. There is also the threat of the brand image being damaged by the counterfeit products on the market.
  • Material’s price: The continual increasing price of raw materials will affect Colgate’s pricing strategy directly. Over time, it will be harder to justify the high price and result in sales decrease as well as brand switching rate increases.
  • Low margins: To stay in a saturated market, Colgate may have to give more and more discounts to sustain its position, which leads to lower margins and less profit.
  • Frequent brand switching: This is an unavoidable threat since there are full of other brands claiming all sorts of superior benefits; customers would hardly stick to a particular brand. Several factors can affect the consumer’s choice, such as availability, price, preference, recommendation, and simple curiosity.
  • Ethical issues: Animal testing, the deceptive claim of dentists’ recommendations, and unhealthy materials, whether these are true or not, have been concerned about Colgate stated by acclaimed media sources. This information is likely to affect the brand image of Colgate.

Colgate advertising strategy

Colgate has positioned its toothpaste products as mainstream with a competitive pricing policy (slightly higher than the competitors’). The strategy plays with purchaser psychology by portraying the products that have better oral effects and longer duration. But this cannot work without proper advertising strategy to strengthen the claim. Here is what Colgate has focused on in its advertising strategy to promote the brand image worldwide.

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