Did it work 360⁰ ?

Introduction:

Think of a daily morning scene during the bathroom rush in the peak hours before the class and one will easily find out how our classmates rigorously trying to whiten their teeth with a toothbrush making it visit all parts of the mouth --- left cheek to right, upper gum to lower and so on. Now in some 80’s to early 90’s in villages they used to prefer a neem-stick rather than an artificial brush. Yes cost saving and as long as the neem tree is there unlimited source of toothbrushes. But the time has changed. With the introduction of TV ads and various designer toothbrushes even the neem tree went out of the market in the village. Thus the monopoly ended. In this blog I actually ended up surveying various toothbrushes in the 2012 market and staying at manamai you can actually get the data more related to the villages. Though started with various toothbrushes I ended up concentrating upon Colgate 360⁰ only.

Product Specification:

Colgate 360⁰ was introduced to market somewhat in April 2006 and at the start had a great fight to conquer a place in the market. In urban areas it grabbed the market slowly with its exciting look, grip and the little pad in the brush part which rotates and so on. But it has been priced high till then. So it became a commodity to the upper level of society and failed to reach the lower level. As I have lived in metros all my life so I never thought of surveying the same product which I have been using for 2-3 years in some village area. But when you have Mahabalipuram and Manamai on your left and Anupuram on your right you are supposed to have a great look on the market demand of the product in villages.

1^st Visit: Mahabalipuram Super market:

It was quite surprising to know from the sales lady that may be supermarket is the last place people come to buy a mere toothbrush though they have some nice stock of Colgate, Oral-B, Pepsodent etc.. I will say she was kind enough to mention that most of the local people prefer to buy the toothbrushes from roadside grocery shops and they hardly go beyond Rs.15-20 for a toothbrush. Then why do they have such stocks in Supermarket? Mainly for the tourists, the very few upper class people and somewhat college students. According to her data tourists never go for any preferred brand and they take any of the brands whatever they want. Others go for Colgate (range Rs 50) or Oral B or Pepsodent. No preference can be given to any of them.

2^nd Visit: Anupuram Medical Store:

Not much different view was represented from the shop owner in Anupuram. It was the same view. One new input was that toothbrush usage may happen daily but buying toothbrushes are not a very frequent occurrence. So in Anupuram also didn’t receive distinctive data to give any of the company preference or making a definite decision on colgate 360⁰ whether it has some edge on other products in the line.

3^rd Visit:Boy’s Hostel utility Store:

Tired and tensed about the blog I stepped into the utility store and they had only colgate and pepsodent as stock. As only 1 month has passed by, a little quantity has been sold and mostly colgate. According to shop owner in hostel price is not a constraint as choices are limited. I found the possible reason for preference of Colgate over Pepsodent as the jar containing colgate toothbrush is just in front of the customer while in other case pepsodent is at back.

Market Behavior:

The market behaviour in villages towards toothbrushes mostly colgate is not very encouraging. There are some basic reasons:

1.      Villagers don’t go for the style and only go for the minimal utility.

2.      Colgate 360⁰ has a price range of Rs 50-100 and that is too much for the economically weak people. They can’t afford a costly daily basis commodity.

3.      Naturally toothbrushes give discount on family packs as buying two for Rs 130, one will get a toothbrush free. Most of the people are not willing to go for that much futuristic idea of having 3 toothbrushes.

4.      The next and one important reason is introduction of free toothbrushes with toothpaste which has a huge impact on loose toothbrush sales.

Inference:

The simpler the better ---- the same idea has been taken by the rural habitats while buying the toothbrushes. As a result Colgate 360⁰ sales are just negligible. Colgate has incurred more cost to make a toothbrush with such technology of 360⁰ cleaning, tongue cleaner and holding grip. But naturally as the production cost increased the selling price also increased proportionately. Therefore it demotivated rural people to buy it. Colgate 360⁰ couldn’t dominate the market 360⁰.