Collgate Marketing Strategy: Colgate And Social Media Strategy

Colgate with its new product Visible White has targeted to reach out to urban Indian men and women in the age group of 18-35 years. The main strategy behind segmenting this target group for its product is that people consume carious cosmetics and personal care items to look beautiful/handsome. Colgate with its brand Visible White wants to include teeth in this category. This particular age group is commonly called Generation Y or Gen-Y, which captures 30% of the total internet using population in India. In order to reach out to this TG, Colgate has effectively adopted a digital marketing campaign and extensively used social media channels. The brand aimed to create a strong digital presence in the minds of Gen-Y positioning the product as a

Blogging: Blog allows anyone to post short stories in the form of posts and provides variety of features such as comments, subscriptions, blog rolls, etc. According to a research people trust blogs more than social networking websites or community websites. It is more conversational in nature.

2. Twitter and Micro blogging: Micro blogging is a form of blogging which limits the posts to a certain fixed number of words or characters, for example twitter allows tweets of max 140 characters. Twitter is a channel that every company must utilize effectively in order to stay at the top of what their competitor is doing and to know how the market reacts.

3. Social Networking: Form of social media to share your thoughts and opinions with group of friends and others by means of posts, profiles, Facebook group activities, etc. It can be used to enhance and establish brand image, be a thought leader, market research, networking with group of people with similar interests, targeted

• The image of the brand, before extension will to a great degree effect the perceived image of the brand after the extension.

• If the perceived fit between the parent brand and its extension is low, then there is a high probability that the parent brand image may deteriorate.

• Also if the perceived quality of the extension is low, it will have a negative impact on the overall brand image.

• Lastly, if the customers feel that the extended brand is not innovative, then too it may hamper the image of the parent brand.

Thus we see that brand extensions are double-edged swords in the hands of the marketing manager. They can be used to leverage the popularity of the parent brand and reap huge profits, however poorly executed brand extensions can hamper the image of the parent brand too.

References : 1) Eva Martínez, José M. Pina, (2003),"The negative impact of brand extensions on parent brand image", Journal of Product& Brand Management, Vol. 12 Iss 7 pp. 432-448

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3) Eva MartínezLeslie de Chernatony, (2004),"The effect of brand extension strategies upon brand image", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 21 Iss 1 pp. 39 –