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    Colgate-Palmolive: Cleopatra Case Analysis - Group 6: Background

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    Ankur Goyal
    Colgate-Palmolive launched its highly successful French soap brand Cleopatra in the Canadian province of Quebec. While initial advertising and coupon campaigns were successful, sales soon stalled in the competitive Canadian soap market. Additional market research revealed that while customers who tried Cleopatra liked it, awareness and preferences remained much lower than competitors like Dove. The analysis recommends modifying advertising to be Canada-specific, incentivizing retailers to stock Cleopatra, revising the premium pricing to be closer to Dove, and allowing more time for customer trials and adoption given positive ratings from users.

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    Colgate-Palmolive: Cleopatra Case Analysis - Group 6: Background

    Uploaded by

    Ankur Goyal
    311 views2 pages
    Colgate-Palmolive launched its highly successful French soap brand Cleopatra in the Canadian province of Quebec. While initial advertising and coupon campaigns were successful, sales soon stalled in the competitive Canadian soap market. Additional market research revealed that while customers who tried Cleopatra liked it, awareness and preferences remained much lower than competitors like Dove. The analysis recommends modifying advertising to be Canada-specific, incentivizing retailers to stock Cleopatra, revising the premium pricing to be closer to Dove, and allowing more time for customer trials and adoption given positive ratings from users.

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    Colgate-Palmolive_Cleopatra

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    Colgate-Palmolive launched its highly successful French soap brand Cleopatra in the Canadian province of Quebec. While initial advertising and coupon campaigns were successful, sales soon stalled in the competitive Canadian soap market. Additional market research revealed that while customers who tried Cleopatra liked it, awareness and preferences remained much lower than competitors like Dove. The analysis recommends modifying advertising to be Canada-specific, incentivizing retailers to stock Cleopatra, revising the premium pricing to be closer to Dove, and allowing more time for customer trials and adoption given positive ratings from users.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    311 views2 pages

    Colgate-Palmolive: Cleopatra Case Analysis - Group 6: Background

    Uploaded by

    Ankur Goyal
    Colgate-Palmolive launched its highly successful French soap brand Cleopatra in the Canadian province of Quebec. While initial advertising and coupon campaigns were successful, sales soon stalled in the competitive Canadian soap market. Additional market research revealed that while customers who tried Cleopatra liked it, awareness and preferences remained much lower than competitors like Dove. The analysis recommends modifying advertising to be Canada-specific, incentivizing retailers to stock Cleopatra, revising the premium pricing to be closer to Dove, and allowing more time for customer trials and adoption given positive ratings from users.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    COLGATE-PALMOLIVE: CLEOPATRA

    Case Analysis - Group 6


    Divya Mani Tripathi B19016 Athul Krishna B19130
    Abhijith A B19119 Reshmi Sriram B19157
    Aditya Kashyap B19121 Rohan Paliwal B19159
    Ankur Goyal B19125 Shagun Mathur B19165

    Background
    Cleopatra was Colgate-Palmolive's highly successful soap brand in France. The company decided to launch the brand in Canada, in
    the Quebec Province. Quebec, unlike other regions in Canada, is French-speaking and has historical connections to France. The
    Canadian soap market is highly competitive, and manufacturers are dependent on retailers to sell their products. To avoid paying
    hefty commissions and providing heavy profit margins to retailers, the company deciding to induce consumer pull, thus forcing
    retailers to stock the shelves. While the company's advertisement and coupons campaign initially produced great success, sales soon
    stalled.

    Industry Landscape
    The Canadian soap market had three segments – skincare, refreshment, and utility. Consumers tended to buy the cheapest from a
    group of 3 to 4 "acceptable brands," and brands vied to be one this group. The market leader across segments was Ivory, which had
    been around for over 100 years, and this heritage was its positioning. In the skincare segment, Dove had a loyal base because of its
    moisturizing contents. Irish Spring and Zest were soaps that did well in the refreshment segment. Colgate-Palmolive sought to avoid
    the strong price competition in the market; Cleopatra was launched as a premium quality product and priced above Dove. The
    company's market research found that 64% of consumers who tried the product would repurchase it. To induce customer trials, the
    company spent heavily on advertisements and coupons for the soap.

    Results of Consumer Research


    2 types of researches were done, both in Toronto (instead of Quebec)

    1. Among a "super group" of articulate professional women: They seemed to like the soap
    2. Among typical customers: They also were excited by the soap and 2/3 rd of them were ready to buy it as soon as it was
    available on the shelves

    The company also conducted new market research in Quebec after the bad performance of the brand, which revealed:

    1. Brand awareness of Cleopatra was still much lower than that of Dove (99.5%), Palmolive (96.1%) or Camay (98.5%)
    2. People who tried Cleopatra gave it a very good rating at every aspect and were sticking to it (only 1% loss rate)
    3. People who didn't try Cleopatra were giving more rating to Dove and Palmolive (negative perception)
    4. Most of the respondents wanted to use Cleopatra occasionally as most of them wanted to use the product on their body

    Analysis and Recommendations


    Steve Boyd has three options –

    To discontinue the brand, To continue the strategy with minor modifications or To alter the strategy/product

    Based on the analysis done, we observe that Cleopatra, which was being positioned as a premium product, does not fit into any of
    the given categories. Instead, the company is trying to create a new category. So even though the brand has achieved the objective
    of "share of voice," it has not been able to impact customer preferences. This is also corroborated by the fact that only 21% of
    coupons were redeemed. In such a case, we have seen that the brand has to be patient and invest a lot in order to be successful. We
    recommend the following modifications in the current strategy:

    1. Advertising should be modified and made Canada specific instead of using French advertisements as the company is wholly
    dependent on the pull effect.
    2. The company should also incentivize retailers to carry forward their brand as trials would be a major source of brand
    adoption.
    3. The pricing should also be revised and brought closer to Dove, as most people preferred the cheapest "acceptable" brands.
    4. The company should wait for some more time as the customer who used the product were actually sticking to it.

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