This is a case study of cottle taylor discussed in a management class. In this case study , all efforts are being made to solve the case study and all the questions are answered. Hope this would be useful to management students.

1. COTTLE-TAYLOR:
EXPANDING THE ORAL
CARE GROUP IN INDIA

2. Cottle Taylor
 Cottle- US based company
 1815
 Range of 200 products
 Main product categories:
 ORAL CARE
 PERSONAL CARE
 HOME CARE
 $11.5 Billion
.

3. What factors determine demand for toothbrush? How can demand be
increased?
 80% of population lives with less than $2/day.
 22% of Indian population is urban who are affluent.
 Remaining 78% lives in the rural and are more price
sensitive.
 These 78% account for 64% of Indian expenditures.

4. Factors determining the demand of
the toothbrush
 Affordability
 Oral hygiene Awareness
 Frequency of use
 Distribution and Accessibility
 Educating the public about Oral Care.
 Income group.

5.  Brinda Patel – Director Of Cottle oral care
marketing
 Michael Lang – VP of Marketing (Asia & Africa)
 US – Personal care & Home care
 Growth of sales 18% to 30%.
How is Cottle doing in in India?

6. 2009 Market share: 38%
In India, just a little sub set of affluent purchasers could
manage the cost of a battery-worked toothbrush.
With restricted optional spending, the larger part of Indians
are using home-developed dental solutions and/or
reasonable inexpensive modern oral care products.

7. Toothbrush products of Cottle
India
Low-End Manual Mid-Range Manual Battery Operated
The Complete The Zagger The swirl
The Sensitooth The Directionflex Swirlrefil
The FreshGum
The Surround
The Kidsie

8. Has Cottle enjoyed a first mover advantages?
 Focused Exclusive on Oral Care.
Product Category
 Toothpaste,
 Toothpowder
 Tooth brush
Products were sold in more than 4,50,000 retail outlets,
from small shops in town to closet sized urban sidewalk vendors
to super markets & specialty retailers.
As the market for modern oral care products developed ,
Cottle planned to introduce ancillary products, including the
mouth wash and dental floss, hence safe to say yes.

9. Indian Market and Oral Care
 General lack of knowledge.
 Widespread practice of chew twigs from Neem
Tree.
 50% of population not concerned with oral
care.
 1 “dental personal” per 10,000 people.
 In 2007, 50% of the rural India did not use a
tooth brush to clean teeth and few follow IDA’s
recommendations.

10. Cottle-Taylor’s Prices
 Toothbrush
-Low-End Manual ->$0.20-$0.33
-Mid-Range Manual ->$0.52-$0.98
-Battery Operated ->$11.64 + refills $1.02
 Toothpaste
-Basic (100ml) : $0.4
-Advanced (100ml):$0.5
 Toothpowder
-100 ml :$03

11. How should Cottle accelerate the development of the
toothbrush market in India?
 Persuade consumers to brush for the first time.
 Increase the incident of brushing.
 Persuade consumers to upgrade to mid-range or
premium products.
 Increasing awareness through check up camps.
 Tie ups with Schools and Institutions.
 Promotion of safe brushing habits by working with IDA.
 Gender and age targeted designs, products.

12. Above the Line Marketing Strategy
 Advertise through bill-boards in the streets
 Advertise aggressively on mid-range toothbrush.
 Link it to CSR activity to educate society on brushing twice and
market the product.
Below the Line Marketing Strategy
 Updating “Anganwadi” workers in villages about the oral hygiene
and providing the free samples to people who gets oral health
problems.
 Free health check – ups in towns schools and colleges and provide
them with samples.

13. *What are Cottle’s target market
segments?
Largest Distributors (Mid and premium toothbrush)
 Urban Locations
 Focus on High Volume Retail Outlets
 Largest Supermarket Chains
Medium-Sized Distributors(mid and low-end toothbrush)
 Semi-urban Areas.
 Served Wholesalers & Retailers.
Small-Sized Distributors(Low-end toothbrush)
 Rural Locations
 300,000 Outlets in small villages

14. Segments
 Classified on basis of income:
 Low Income
 Middle Income
 High Income
 Geography:
 Rural
 Urban
 Gender:
 Male
 Female

15. *Should Cottle spend advertising dollars prompting battery operated
toothbrushes? Why or Why not?
 Advertisement budget was equally split through
the 3 messages until 2009.
 Target Market for media advertising: Men and
women (Age 20-35) - Both rural and urban.
 Campaign weighted to mid-range products and
encourages consumer to trade up.

16. TAKE:
 Hence from the above given information, and
the data from the numerical excerpt, it is
evident that the majority of the sales are for
the mid level or middle income group.
 Also, the electric toothbrush, being a slightly
premium products, caters to the crowd who
are aware of it and hence doesn’t justify the
investment on promoting it further through
advertisements.

17. 2009 2010 Expected Patel 2010 Expected LANG
produd
ct
Unit
Sale
s
%
inc
Unit
sales
p/u
(after
20%
increa
se)
Reven
ue
%
incre
ase
Unit sales p/u (after
20%
increase)
Revenue
Base
year
(m)
(m) $(m) (m) $(m)
Low
end
manual
comp 230.
6
20 276.7 0.18 49.08 16 267.5 0.18 48.15
sensi 29.9 20 35.9 0.216 7.754 16 34.7 0.216 7.5
Fres 15 20 18 0.216 3.888 16 17.4 0.216 3.76
Surr 9 7 9.7 0.228 2.212 16 10.4 0.228 2.91
kidsie 15 8 16.2 0.144 2.333 16 17.4 0.144 2.51
Total 299.
5
356.5 65.99 347.4 64.82
Mid
range
manual
zagget 34.4 25 43 0.348 14.96 120 75.7 0.348 26.34
Direc 8.6 25 10.8 0.63 6.804 120 18.9 0.63 11.9
Total 43 53.8 21.77 94.62 38.24
Battery
operate
d
swirl 1.5 13 1.7 7.68 13.06 25 1.87 7.68 14.36
refills 0.2 0 0.2 0.67 0.134 25 0.25 0.67 0.17
Total 1.7 1.9 13.19 2.12 14.53
344.
2
412.2 101 444.1 117.6

18. Issues – For Marketing Plan
 Distributors didn’t always understood the key selling
points of Cottle’s toothbrushes.
 Difficulty in communicating in rural locations - don’t
speak local dialect.
 Regional holidays & culture practices often complicated
distributor staffing &retail deliveries.
Rural Retailer un-certainity:
 Inventory planning - because sales are influence by
customer daily or weekly incomes.
 Wages of Day laborers have high fluctuations due to job
availability and weather.

19. Proposal for Advertising Marketing
Plan
 Message 1 “Brush for the 1st time”.
 Message 2 “Brush more often”.
 Message 3 “Upgrade the brush”

20. Questions?