He will probably start purchasing his own toothbrush and will be included in one of the three behavioral groups I have previously discussed. After the age of 55, people seem to lose interest in tooth brushing and are likely to practice it less than earlier. The most important issue that that managers should consider when deciding on product positioning is the category of consumer they choose to address. In this sense, clear segmentation schemes should be provided, included by income, age, social position, etc. These external environment factors will provide the basis from which the product can be developed, including here features that make up the augmented product and the expected product. Knowing the consumer you target is essential in making and delivering a products that will provide full customer satisfaction and will permit customer retention.

On the other hand, the manager needs to perform an internal analysis and decide, in terms of costs, human resource, etc. If he can produce and deliver the respective product to the respective consumer category. It may be the case that he cannot and he will need to further segment the chosen market in order to discover a flexible niche that he can successfully approach.

In this sense, a good coordination and correlation between internal resources ("what you can produce and deliver") and the external environment you are targeting ("what you want to produce") is important when positioning a product.

Product naming is extremely important in the launching phase because it may create an initial impulse or stimulus for people to try the product. On the other hand, I am not sure it plays such an important role in the toothbrush industry. However, persons in the first behavioral category may turn to a toothbrush called Precision if the name reflects any technical characteristics that improves brushing.

In my opinion, the general characteristics of the product, as conceived by the Colgate managers...

Here are several elements to support this assertion. First of all, the product is "top-of -- the range, super premium." This excludes from the start the last category of consumers initially discusses, which covers 33% of the market. It still addresses, however, some of the other two categories.
On the other hand, there are other external factors to be considered, the most important one being the strong competition from Gillette and Oral-B in the premium market. The disadvantage is that Oral-B already has a significant experience in the premium domain. What can Colgate bring extra into the game (besides a higher price) to make people turn away from a brand they have been using for a certain period of time? When evaluating this, we should note that people tend to get attached to the type of toothbrush they use, so it is difficult to change their beliefs.

In this sense, skimming the first two categories seems to be the best choice for Colgate. In its campaign, it can insist that concentrating on a specific aspect of dental hygiene (gum diseases) permitted the creation of an extremely specialized product, addressing the exact needs of the consumers. Differentiation can meld here with specialization and customization.

Bibliography

1. Laidler, Nathalie. November 1993. Colgate-Palmolive Company: The Precision Toothbrush. Harvard Business School.

2. Levitt, Theodore. 2000. Marketing success through differentiation - of anything.

3. Seybold, Patricia. May 2001. Get Inside the Lives of Your Customers. Harvard Business Review. Vol. 79, Issue 5.

Laidler, Nathalie. November 1993. Colgate-Palmolive Company: The Precision Toothbrush. Harvard Business School..

Levitt, Theodore. 2000. Marketing success through differentiation - of anything.

Laidler, Nathalie. November 1993.Colgate-Palmolive Company: The Precision Toothbrush.…