P&G to launch Oral-B toothpaste tomorrow

Madhuri Dixit, the brand ambassador of Oral-B toothbrush, to edorse the toothpaste

The much-anticipated entry of Procter & Gamble (P&G) in India’s largest oral care category, toothpastes, will happen on Tuesday. The company will make the foray under the Oral-B umbrella, familiar to Indians now as a toothbrush maker. Actor Madhuri Dixit, who is brand ambassador for Oral-B in India, will endorse the new toothpaste besides toothbrushes.

P&G, the world’s largest consumer products company, had first disclosed plans of the impending launch in May last year, when its global chief financial officer Jon Moeller had indicated so at an investor meet in the US.

“We are committed to maintaining developing-market momentum, strengthening our core business in developed markets, having a robust innovation pipeline and looking at cost improvements,” Moeller had said. “We will look at expanding into new spaces and stepping up investment behind our brands,” he had added.

The launch will put an end to years of speculation about P&G’s entry into toothpastes in one of the most promising oral care markets in the world. For a long time, most expected P&G to launch its top-selling brand ‘Crest’ in India. But with P&G upping its spends behind Oral-B with its Smile campaign endorsed by Dixit in recent years, it soon became clear the toothpaste foray would happen under Oral-B.

Globally, Oral-B is the leader in the brushing segment and is one of P&G’s billion-dollar brands. The company has a toothpaste portfolio under Oral-B which sells in countries such as Greece, Portugal, Israel and Venezuela.

A recent report from brokerage house Edelweiss had said the company intended to take Oral-B toothpastes to many more countries and the impending launch in India would be a step in that direction.

The toothpaste market in India, pegged at Rs 6,000 crore, has been growing at a clip of 19 per cent per annum.

In the past two years, companies such as GSK and Colgate have demonstrated consumers in oral care can be uptraded provided the products are right. GSK’s Sensodyne targets sensitivity, an oral health problem where the sufferer experiences a sharp, shooting pain on consumption of anything hot or cold, is already clocking sales in excess of Rs 100 crore. Pegged at Rs 950 crore, sensitivity, the largest of the emerging toothpaste categories, is growing at 30 to 40 per cent per annum. Both, GSK and Colgate have taken the battle for niche oral care to the next level with launches in areas such as gum care and teeth whitening in the last few months.

While Oral-B is expected to play in the mass toothpaste market to begin with, analysts say there is no preventing it from stepping into niche oral care once it is launched in India. Colgate, which fights P&G in most markets across the world, is likely to further step up its investment behind its brands in view of the impending launch.

Colgate’s advertising & sales promotion expenditure is 13 to 14 per cent of sales at the moment. Analysts estimate it could go up to 15 to 16 per cent of sales as Colgate attempts to ringfence against P&G’s launch in India.