At the core of this unprecedented and radical change for Colgate, is a strategic shift from a product-obsessed company to a people-obsessed one. For three years, through dozens of campaigns, this creative strategy has been expressed in many shapes and forms to create an emotional brand equity and impact the business results.

Colgate has been historically a product, product, product focused brand. Selling bright smiles, also called “Colgate smiles”. But as times have changed and most of the competition did the same, brand distinctiveness and business results have started to decrease. In this context, Colgate needed to build a strong brand equity and reconnect with culture to ensure the future of its business.

Colgate was the category leader in most markets. But as such, it established the norms for communication, which were entirely focused on product innovations and functional RTBs. These were easy for other brands to mimic, to the point that most people were not paying attention to the category. They were buying on auto-pilot without a clear emotional link to any brand. Or if they were, it was to new local brands with authentic salience. By 2015, this started to take it’s toll on value share and brand health measures, which decreased in key markets—from slow steady declines in EU, LatAm and MENA to precipitous drop-offs in APAC. We needed to shake up the category and change behavior by communicating a clear purpose, to build emotional bond before someone else did! Our objective: stabilize value share decline while growing brand distinctiveness and love as a foundation of future growth.

Colgate is the smile company, creating products, services and experiences that bring healthy smiles to people all around the world. But through our cultural research, work with optimism guru, Matt Pepper, and key internal workshops, we realized that everyday life challenges have a “paralyzing effect” that often make us feel helpless. The breakthrough moment uncovered that optimism is more than a feeling…it is actually a choice that empowers us to take action. And a smile, from ourselves or others, gives us strength that is more powerful than you might think.

It was key to move away from the “cosmetic” smile that Colgate have been promoting for more than 200 years and explore the new territory of real emotions and meaning behind people’s smiles to better connect with people and culture. So, we did exactly that: because our smile expresses our optimism facing life events or even a sign of our resilience, we said that “Our Smile is our strength” and supported all those who were smiling against the odds (“I smile” campaign). We championed those who act out of optimism and bring smiles to others (“Smile Stories” campaign). We have shown that “Smiles always find a way”, and challenged the perception that wrinkles are a bad thing, saying that they are a sign a “Lifetime of smiles”. And this is just the beginning...

Preference for Colgate is 6x greater than our competitors (Sensodyne, Aquafresh, Oral B).

Colgate is the most trusted brand compared to our competitors.

ROI has never been higher, and for the first time, Equity ROI is higher than non-Equity ROI.

Sales increased in an overall decreasing market.