Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and brand involvement in an emerging market

Himalaya Herbal Toothpaste: Category and brand involvement in an emerging marketGroup 5Oral Care IndustryOral care market in India -$980mlGrowth trend toothpaste - 11%Declining toothbrush usage rate - 9%98% population - suffered from oral health problems

Q1. Findings about the involvement levels of consumers Exhibit 6, table 1:36% brushed twice a day either due to Low awareness Low involvement Existing brands focus more on their benefits (benefits based market) rather than on driving oral health education.74% never visited dentist.13% visit a dentist once in 6 months.Dentists rarely recommended toothpaste brands, but when they did, 6 out of 7 respondents switched their brand.Q1. contd.84% of the respondents claimed to have not had oral problems. But as per WHO stats, 98% of Indian population suffered from oral health problems.This implies that the risk involved in this category is low, as consumers do not seem to be strongly impacted by their lack of oral health maintenance.Consumers do not go to the dentist as a preventive but as curative measure.When data is broken down according to the benefit segments, most of the parameters remain the same, except the practice of brushing twice a day. 68 per cent of the respondents in niche category brushed twice a day, as opposed to 36 per cent in the overall group.Users of Colgate ActiveSalt and Colgate Sensitive, both offer curative benefits.This is proof that there is a change in consumer involvement as a function of potential risk.

Q2Involvement with category and attitude towards brands-Exhibit 6, table 2Only 41% of of the respondents expressed high involvement.A significant number of consumers did not express extremely low involvement with the category.Their responses indicate a moderate to low involvement, since the category was considered daily essential.59% expressed a relatively low to moderate involvement with the category and product benefits.

Q2Cognitive and affective associationsExhibit 6, Table 3:69% had strong cognitive beliefs about respective brands, whereas only 53% had strong affective beliefs. It could be inferred that brands in the toothpaste category have established their functional benefits better compared to their emotional benefits in their advertisementsInvolvement levels associated with each of the brandsExhibit 5,Table 1:Key drivers by which category involvement was expressed at the total category level. The mean values in the last column are directionally indicative of levels of involvement.

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Top drivers for category involvement at the overall levelOffered benefits of healthy teeth and healthy gums. Protection against cavities was also rated as important, possibly because cavities are a common manifestation of poor oral care and require expensive and painful treatment

Other drivers of category involvementThe presence of natural ingredients in the toothpaste.Although a large percentage of the consumers might have expressed natural/herbal toothpastes as a key category driver, they did not use products that were necessarily natural.Q3.Low category involvement and high brand attitude according to various segments and overall category

In certain segments, for some consumers, the brand attitude may be relatively strong on cognitive and affective beliefs despite low category involvement.

Exhibit 5 provides the mean values, which allows a better understanding of the connection between category drivers and attitude statements, and helps explain the inconsistency in those instances where brand attitude overwhelms category involvement.

Freshness(Toothpaste)Freshness(Brand)Oral Care(Toothpaste)Oral Care(Brand)Fresh Breath3.143.513.293.38Great Flavor and taste3.423.543.353.26Fights Cavities3.513.573.483.42Germ Fighting3.323.453.233.35Healthy Gums3.423.383.383.26Tooth decay3.483.423.263.29Oral Health Problems3.353.483.263.35Healthy teeth3.453.573.423.42Tooth Ache3.383.263.423.38Natural Ingredients3.543.323.453.11Whitens Teeth3.423.323.292.98Dentist Recommended3.353.23.352.86Dazling Smile3.483.293.43.32Confidence3.233.263.23.38Q4.46% of the total respondents had a consistently strong belief for both the cognitive as well as the affective aspects of the brand. This segment would also be likely to map onto the high-involvement segment, as these consumers knew the functional benefits of the brand, and those benefits had successfully been associated with the emotional benefits that the brand wished to communicate.24% of the total respondents had neither strong cognitive beliefs nor strong affective beliefs respect to their brand; these consumers mapped onto the low- to moderate involvement segment.

Q4. contd.There was an inconsistency observed between the cognitive and the affective beliefs for about 30%. 7% of the consumers have Weak cognitive and strong affective beliefs which means that they have relatively low involvement of the consumer as the consumer is not looking for the functional benefits of the product but is rather moved by the emotions displayed in the advertisement.23% of the consumers have strong cognitive and weak affective beliefs given in the exhibit 2 which means that that the consumers are focused more on their functional benefits and rather than the emotional benefits.

Q5Enter into niche/ problem solving segment For the herbal segment, make an emotional connect with the consumersWithin a given category, diversify product for economy tierHigh affective belief of 60% in freshness category as compared to a low 44% in the herbal category-company can en-cash on an additional ingredient in the niche category.Market products through dentists.Driving a core and emotional benefits.Advertise (like colgate and HUL).

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