43 matches, 43 films: Colgate goes all in for its IPL campaign

In the midst of the fervent excitement surrounding the latest season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), Colgate-Palmolive India has launched a new campaign titled Indian Sweets League. This initiative serves as a subtle reminder of a habit often overlooked amid post-celebration revelries: brushing teeth at night. 

The campaign includes 43 ad films, conceptualised and created manually for 43 different matches of the tournament. The agency behind the campaign is WPP@CP, an integrated global WPP team dedicated to serving Colgate-Palmolive worldwide.

The brand first introduced the Brush Tonight campaign in October 2023, during the ICC Men’s World Cup. The ad film accompanying the campaign, seeking to elevate awareness about oral hygiene, depicted consumers of all age groups brushing their teeth with food. Sweet foods, to be more precise.

This time around, Colgate is banking on a cricketing story to get the message across, with veteran players Suresh Raina and Zaheer Khan taking the lead.

Envision the scene: millions of avid cricket fans, eyes fixed on their television screens, as the stadium echoes with anticipation. The fate of the match hangs on the last bowled ball, prompting ecstatic cheers or disappointed sighs. Regardless of the outcome, the moment calls for celebration, typically accompanied by delectable desserts.

For the most part, IPL matches occur towards the end of the day, and go on late into the night. For Colgate, it is the perfect window of opportunity to plug its nighttime oral care awareness campaign. 

As per Gunjit Jain, who is the executive vice president of marketing at Colgate-Palmolive India, the campaign, just like other Colgate campaigns is influenced and led by common consumer insights. In this case, it happens to be consumers voluntarily choosing to overlook nighttime brushing. 

He says, “There is a lot of munching that happens while watching a nail-biting finish to an IPL match. The matches coincide with the timing of people have dinner. So, it is the right time for us to communicate our message of oral healthcare.”

Central to the campaign's message is the encouragement for viewers to observe a nightly ‘strategic timeout’ dedicated to brushing their teeth. This simple act, emphasised within the context of cricketing enthusiasm, is an easy way out of dental problems such as cavities, as per the brand. 

Strategic timeout in the IPL matches refers to a two-and-a-half-minute break where teams regroup and strategise the way forward. This year’s IPL has already onboarded CEAT Tyres as its ‘strategic timeout partner’. So, it is pertinent to mention here, Colgate’s reference to ‘strategic timeout’ is not a sponsorship, but rather a wordplay on a common cricketing phrase.

Jain explains, “Our aim was not to replace anybody and we have not bought that property out. A strategic timeout happens in every innings. So, we decided to encourage consumers to have a strategic timeout for their teeth.”

The campaign includes 43 ad films, created for 43 matches. If you’re wondering why the campaign only includes 43 matches and not the total of 74 of the IPL 2024, it is because the brand entered the IPL brand bonanza a little late. Deliberately, as per Jain.

“We could have started earlier, but we also wanted to perfect our communication in a way that it could have the right impact. We took time to be as thorough with this campaign as possible, and the result is 43 videos created for 43 matches. All of them different.”

The ad films feature cricketing icons Suresh Raina and Zaheer Khan, who, depending on the match, are seen opposite each other wearing the two teams’ uniforms. All ad films have been made manually.

Media mix

The brand has opted to feature its ads on JioCinema during the IPL. This is because Colgate’s push to promote nighttime oral care is directed at urban consumers. 

“Our media mix for now is just JioCinema, because our objective of driving the behaviour for night brushing is very urban India-specific. Only 20 percent of Urban Indians brush at night. These also happen to be the economically affluent consumers, who have the facilities but choose not to do it,” Jain points out.

Strolling through Colgate’s recent ads

Over the course of the last six months, Colgate has introduced multiple ads for its various brands. These include The Sweet Truth, Morning Goof Ups (Colgate MaxFresh), No Dard, No Darr (Colgate Active Salt), among others. The ad films are very atypical of what is generally expected of the category- a lab coat, a pseudo-dentist, and a disgruntled patient.

For instance, The Sweet Truth, the ad film that serves as the foundation of the new IPL campaign, features very dramatic visuals of people brushing their teeth with food. The Morning Goof Ups ad film sees a doctor carry his bed to an operation theatre. The Active Salt ad sees a minister sweat and panic upon seeing a chair because it reminds him of a dentist’s clinic.  

While Colgate’s recent ads are peculiarly very comical, the brand insists that the language employed for the commercials is entertaining, but not humour-led. 

Jain elaborates, “The tone of communication in the brand world has to be hard coded for every particular brand. The strategy for us is not to be humorous. Our ads for different brand have carried different intonations. The ad for Colgate Active Salt may be dramatic, while the tone of our Colgate Strong Teeth ad is entertaining. So, it depends.”

Colgate’s business between sub-brands

As per Jain, the company's revenue streams in the Indian market, particularly amidst its diverse portfolio of brands, see the lion's share coming from what he terms the "core brands".

Jain says, "So the revenue still tends to come from what I would say are our core brands. That's the majority share coming from brands like Colgate Strong Teeth, Colgate MaxFresh, and Colgate Active Salt."

Moreover, Jain acknowledges a prevailing trend towards premiumisation within the oral care sector. He notes that while oral care products have traditionally lagged behind other comparable categories in terms of premium offerings, there is a growing impetus to address this gap.

He says, "There is a huge trend out there towards premiumisation. Oral Care has unfortunately lagged behind some of the other comparable categories which are universally penetrated as well. So it is our responsibility as market leaders to provide people with the right solutions in their lives and to be able to premiumise faster. And that's where our premium brands like Colgate Total, Colgate Visible White, and so on and so forth come into play."