Colgate Palmolive Canada Fighting For A Share Of The Toothpaste Market Case Solution

2. Analysis and Evaluation of Options

It was a norm that the spending in the marketing activities was mostly centered towards advertising, followed by trade and consumer promotions. The toothpaste category was a staple product category. However, the competition is quite intense in the category. Furthermore, the retail market, which is used as an important marketing channel is also dominated by few big brands of the retail sector. Price sensitivity (80%) and brand awareness (71%) were amongst the top purchase influence factors that led to the consumer purchase of the product. It was important to ensure that any increase in the budget should be backed by adequate reasoning, and a solid strategy. It is important to analyze the five alternatives given in the case. 

Alternative 1: Deploying the same budget as that of 2012 could be an option, as the performance of oral care has been quite good as a result of the last budget. However, there is a risk to developing stagnancy if further steps are not taken to ensure long term progress of the brand.

Alternative 2: Increasing advertising budget by $3 million is another option. Traditionally, a major chunk of the marketing budget is allocated for advertising. Better media presence can further improve recall and overall awareness of the brand. However, it is very much a conventional move, and might not get the desired results, if this strategy is implemented in an isolated manner. Moreover, retailers have also developed their respective store brands that are direct competitors of oral care product category of Colgate’s products.