With its near-universal penetration, Colgate-Palmolive India is synonymous with oral care in India. However, the company is not resting on its laurels. It has embarked on a mission to change consumer behaviour and grow its premium offerings. In a conversation with Mint, Prabha Narasimhan, managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) at Colgate-Palmolive (India) Ltd, discussed the launch of the year-round Oral Health Movement, the growing focus on premiumization and the challenges of marketing in a diverse nation like India.
Edited excerpts:
Colgate enjoys near-universal awareness in India. How challenging is it to drive further growth and adoption?
A decade ago, oral care penetration in India was around 85%. Today, it’s close to universal. The challenge now is driving behaviour change—encouraging people to adopt habits like brushing twice a day, replacing toothbrushes every three to four months and visiting dentists regularly. Changing consumer behaviour is a long-term endeavour, but it aligns with our mission of ensuring better oral health for every Indian.
Is the Oral Health Movement central to this mission?
Earlier, we ran initiatives like Oral Health Month, which offered free dentist checkups. Now, we’ve expanded this into a year-round Oral Health Movement. This initiative combines technology, awareness and accessibility. For example, our partnership with Logy AI allows consumers to assess their oral health using image recognition via WhatsApp. This is followed up with free oral health assessments through over 50,000 dentists across 1,300 cities. Through initiatives like free oral health assessments and easy appointment setups with over 50,000 dentists, we aim to reposition dentists as agents of prevention, not just problem solvers for critical issues. Additionally, campaigns like “Brush at Night” and our “Bright Smiles, Bright Futures” programme, which reached 10 million children this year, ensure that oral hygiene awareness is a continuous effort. With this always-on approach, we aim to create sustained engagement and accessibility for consumers.
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How does the Oral Health Movement integrate with your marketing strategy?
The Oral Health Movement is integral to our marketing efforts. For instance, we are placing QR codes on 600 million packs, making oral health tools easily accessible to consumers. Television continues to play a significant role in driving nationwide campaigns that promote behaviours like brushing twice daily. On the digital front, data from initiatives like Logy AI allows us to create personalized recommendations and engage more effectively with consumers. Combining broad reach with personalized engagement ensures that our marketing efforts resonate across diverse demographics. Advertising and promotion form a significant part of our strategy.
What proportion of your marketing budget is allocated to these efforts?
We spend about 14% of our turnover on advertising and promotions. A substantial portion of this will be spent on the Oral Health Movement, as it’s central to both our mission and business strategy.
Premiumization is an important focus for Colgate. What is your strategy to grow this segment?
Premiumization is the second pillar of our growth strategy, and it absolutely needs to go up. Currently, only about 14% of the oral care category falls into the premium segment, which lags behind categories like skincare and haircare. Our goal is to grow our premium business at least two to three times faster than our overall business. This growth is driven by products like Colgate Total, which caters to advanced daily oral care and is a global flagship with numerous patents. Whitening solutions, such as our Visible White Purple toothpaste that delivers instant whitening, are designed to tap into beauty-conscious consumers. Additionally, our therapeutic solutions, which address specific dental issues, benefit from the strong network of dentists we’ve built over 87 years in India.
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Consumers often buy toothpaste for specific benefits, whether it’s freshness, gum health or whitening. Our job is to position Colgate products as the clear choice for those needs, ensuring strong recall for each segment.
With rising digital and quick-commerce trends, how is Colgate adapting?
Quick commerce complements us well because it favours a tight assortment where we dominate. About 6% of our business comes from e-commerce, with quick commerce contributing 20% of that. This channel is growing at eight times the pace of our overall business, making it market share- and margin-accretive. Additionally, our understanding of regional preferences allows us to work with quick-commerce platforms to ensure the right assortment is available in the right localities, which further strengthens our position in this channel.
Rural India presents unique challenges. How are you tailoring your approach there?
Rural India is particularly important, as per capita oral care consumption in these areas is about half of urban levels. To address this, we are scaling our “Bright Smiles, Bright Futures” programme to reach more schoolchildren, partnering with state governments in Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Goa to integrate oral hygiene education into school curriculums, and piloting communication strategies to encourage daily brushing habits. We are also piloting new communication strategies to encourage daily brushing habits in rural areas, recognizing the unique behavioural and cultural nuances in these regions. These efforts are focused on driving behavioural changes in rural areas, where brushing frequency tends to be lower than in urban households.
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What’s your vision for oral care in India?
We aspire to see every Indian brushing twice daily, replacing toothbrushes every four months and visiting dentists regularly. With the right tools, consistent engagement and growing awareness, we believe this vision is achievable in the near future.
