Case Brief

Level 2
Revitalizing the Oral Health Month campaign in India

Background:
There was an exhaustive study conducted by Colgate in association with Indian Market Research Bureau
(IMRB) in 2016. Some of the interesting findings from this study were:

In India, 90% people do not visit a dentist regularly

Only 31 % of people visited a dentist in the past one year
Sensitivity and tooth ache are the top two dental ailments in India

The key take away from the above statistics, is that awareness on holistic dental care and hygiene is
relatively low in India. People tend to visit a dentist only when they are in pain or have an acute dental
problem. Affordability of dental care is also a major deterrent for not visiting dentists until the problem
is beyond control

With this aspect in mind, Colgate partnered with Indian Dental Association (IDA) in 2004 to launch the
Oral Health Month (OHM) campaign. The campaign has a two-fold objective:

Spread oral health & hygiene awareness

Make dental checkups more accessible

The objective of Colgate in driving the OHM campaign has been to:
Exhibit Colgates expertise and superiority among consumers
Strengthen partnership with the IDA
Engage with Customers
Evolution of OHM:
Over the years, OHM has been able to establish itself as a flagship program for Colgate and its equity as
an oral care expert. The key aspect of the OHM campaign is to engage the dentist fraternity through the
partnership with IDA. Every year, OHM is conducted in the month of November and December.

Some of the milestones are as follows:

2004 to 2007:

In 2004, OHM was piloted in 6 cities with a limited number of dentists to meet its underlying objective
of bridging the gap between the patients & the dentist and to drive overall oral care hygiene. The
initiative was driven by the professional team (Professional oral care salesforce) on the ground who
liaisoned with the dentists for this initiative.

This pilot conducted across 6 cities was very successful. The scale of OHM was increased each year.
More and more dentists were added to the network increasing the presence of OHM across urban
towns in the country. Our network with dentists increased from 70 dentists in 2004 to 8000 dentists in
2007. In order to reach out to such a large dentist base- a uniform dentist kit was created.

Dental kits were shared with all dentists who were part of this network whoch included:

Banners, Posters, check up cards etc

Samples of leading Colgate toothpaste brands whoch could be given to patients as per their
need
Other literature related to OHM

2007- 2014

During this phase, substantial additions were done

to the program to increase our reach. A dedicated
text based platform was set up which
automatically sent the dentist details to the
consumer basis the pincodes they provided. The
details were sent in response to a text message
from the consumer

In order to expand the reach of OHM amongst the underpriviledged vans equipped with dentists were
sent to select cities. The activity was scaled from 10 cities in 2007 to 50 cties in 2014. During this period,
4 lac+ check ups were done. In addition, schools which were in the vicinity of the areas where the van
was routed were also visited thereby expanding the reach of OHM.
2015-2016

Until 2015, the core messaging on OHM was functional- cavity free future, zero cavities, complete oral
care, oral health and free dental check ups.

There was a need to take OHM to the next level

and stengthen Colgates equity as an oral care
expert not just functionally, but by building an
emotional connect with the consumers.

In 2015 the campaign was rebranded from a

functional approach to a more emotional
approach- Keep India Smiling with free dental
check ups. This completely changed the look and
feel of the campaign and gave it a fresh lease of
life in terms of driving equity.

This change in the overall campaign

communication has been successful in driving the
overall equity of the program

The other key change was to move to an IVR based

toll free number to provide the dentist details to
the consumers in order to provide seamless way of
extending these details and enhancing
participation

Current Campaign: Keep India Smiling

Over the years, the campaign has been focussed on driving awareness of oral care and hygiene. The IMC
campaign focusses on enhancing consumer awareness about dental care and prevention of dental
problems.

The Keep India Smiling campaign was ably supported by a 360 degree IMC campaign consisting of TV,
digital, print media and also with on ground activations such as vans, instore branding amongst others
 Posters On pack digital- FB TV- Online YT

Celeb van flag offs In store check ups PR Van check ups

The purchase of the pack is not mandatory for participation in OHM. Any consumer can avail a free
dental check up either by seeking dentist details through the toll free number or by walking into any
dental clinic in the vicnity which displays the OHM banner. In order to make the pack more central to
the campaign, a check up card is also printed inside the pack- something that may incentivize the
consumer to buy the pack.

The Challenge
OHM has been an extremely successful campaign over the past many years, in order to drive- Colgates
equity as the leader and provider in oral care. The recent transition to Keep India Smiling, as the core
IMC idea has also added a new dimension to the campaign. The key challenge is to expand our reach to
more and more consumers- While the intent is to reach out to as many people as possible, the actual
reach on the ground is a function of the limited budgets that we have. Efficient utilization of the
resources is therefore needed, to revitalize the program not only from a consumers point of view, but
also from a dentists point of view, as many of them now view this as a little more than a sampling
exercise.

Key Deliverables
A Maximum of 5 slides that encapsulate -

Current structure of OHM- Identify Opportunities and Challenges

New ideas to amplify on the ground and consumer outreach plans given the current IMC of
Keep India Smiling as the core central IMC theme
Revitalize a 13 year old campaign- making it more exciting for the dentists to participate
 Draw best practices from other such profession (Dental Association) led campaigns run by
FMCG/Pharma companies
Efficient ways & means to build awareness and direct Dental check-ups amongst more and
more consumers

NOTE: Key deliverable for the shortlisted teams going through to the next round will be to create a
detailed marketing campaign for the IMC idea

For submissions, refer to the guidelines shared in the email along with Login ID & Password