Mobile marketing case study: How Colgate spread a million smiles with its mobile campaign

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When Colgate India discovered that 47% of the total population in India had never visited a dentist, they decided to launch a nationwide oral health awareness campaign - Oral Health Month. The programme offered free in-clinic dental check-ups, and to boost awareness Colgate launched the “Spreading a million smiles with a mobile” campaign.


Case study summary

• Colgate launched Oral Health Care month in India to tackle poor oral hygiene

• The “Spreading a Million Smiles with a Mobile” campaign resulted in 4.9 million free dental check-ups

• Colgate’s market share in India reached 55% of the total share in a competitive category

Challenge

Market research firm GfK Mode conducted a consumer study into oral health in India, which revealed that 47% of the total population in India had never visited a dentist, and that the 38% of people who had only did so when they had a serious dental problem. The study also concluded that 90 percent of respondents would take advantage of a free dental check-up if given the opportunity.

Colgate India decided to improve national oral health awareness with the aim of providing easier access to dental check-ups.

Solution

Oral Health Month was created by Colgate India in association with the Indian Dental Association to spread awareness of the importance of good oral hygiene through free dental check-ups.

The aim of Oral Health Month was to provide easier access to dental check-ups while also identifying and preventing oral health problems, such as cavities, before they became serious.

Oral Health Month provided free in-clinic dental check-ups in over 1,300 cities and towns all over India as well as in mobile vans which went to schools, housing societies and to remote areas.

Colgate India used mobile marketing, due to its popularity in India to raise awareness of the free, local check-ups and encouraged people to not only go for themselves but bring their entire families too.

A mobile number was promoted across mass-media touchpoints in India such as TV, print, and retail to provide information on the nearest free dental check-up centres. In order to receive more information, a consumer just had to give a missed call or send a text with a PIN code to the mobile number.

After giving a missed call, the caller received a call back from Colgate via an interactive voice response system (IVR) that requested that the caller take a “healthy mouth pledge” for their entire family. The caller was then asked to enter a PIN code, to receive a text with the details of the free dental check-up centres nearby.

Colgate also set up geo-targeted campaigns on Facebook in and around the areas where there were free dental check-up centres. Hyper-targeted ads appeared in the Facebook newsfeed of feature phone users. Colgate embedded the missed call functionality within the ad (with a click here to miss call button), so that consumers didn’t have to leave the Facebook environment.

Colgate used customized tagging layered with geo-targeting within Google Search on mobile.

This meant that when a consumer searched for a topic relating to Oral Health Month or dental check-ups, the address of the nearest free dental check-up centre appeared in the text ad at the top of the Google search results page on their mobile device.

For people in media-dark areas, Colgate used outbound voice calls which were linked to an IVR system.

Results

• The Spreading a Million Smiles with a Mobile campaign resulted in 4.9 million free dental check-ups

• Colgate’s market share in India reached 55% of the total share in a competitive category

• Colgate became the most trusted brand in India for the fourth consecutive year according to a survey by The Economics Times

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