Packaging and associated risks
When it comes to packaging, there are a lot of factors that play in. These include colours (as different colours arouse different associations), shape, material and others. Shape and material are quite standard for certain types of products, such as medicines and other OTC products. To some extent even the use of colours is quite standardized. Consequently, when it comes to how we would like to pack the new OTC products, the biggest issue is the name under which to brand it. Should we keep the Colgate name and logo (with the recognisable red colour), or should we launch it other a different name. We have also already said quite a lot about this, and will therefore here not repeat all the advantages and disadvantages with using the Colgate logo or not, only the ones related to our decision.
We would choose to launch the OTC products under a new brand and logo altogether, just mentioning in plan writing that it is a part of the Colgate family. The reason for this is that Colgate has become, and in Europe and Norway still certainly is (as other Colgate-products are not yet launched here) generic with toothpaste. In other words, Colgate to quite some extents synonymous with toothpaste. We have taken this decision as we believe the risk of weakening the Colgate toothpaste brand and sales is very high, even if the OTC products are a success. This is because we believe the exclusivety of the Colgate toothpaste will disappear with Colgate launching new products, and toothpaste beeing the original Colgate product, as well as a very important product of the company, is not worth weakening for branding the new OTC products with Colgate. However, there is little doubt that if ...