Procter & Gamble is putting its money where its mouth is to market its new Crest Pro-Health Toothpaste brand. A $100 million (€79.6m; £54.9m) budget will carpet the way for Pro-Health's launch into US stores on August 7, with an advertising campaign led by Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi and Starcom MediaVest.
The product aims to overtake Colgate-Palmolive's market-leading Colgate Total brand with the proposition that it is accepted by the American Dental Association as a 'magic bullet' for seven major oral care problems.
P&G marketing director Matt Barresi claims the launch is the biggest since Crest with fluoride in the 1960s and he is confident of its market-busting capabilities "because of the magnitude of the performance".
He hypes: "You're going to see us focus on what's really most relevant to the consumer, which is that they can get everything at the same time. It's not just a litany of minor things. They're the things dentists and the ADA care about."
Although Colgate execs have refused to appear outwardly ruffled, they have been buying up top keyword positions on the Google and Yahoo search engines covering most of the oral-care problems Pro-Health will claim to combat.
Data sourced from Adweek (USA); additional content by WARC staff
