2018 commended, GSK, global brand marketing - case study

parodontax (Corsodyl in the UK) is a brand specializing in gum disease; the world’s biggest oral health issue. It’s a nasty infection caused by bacteria build-­‐up along the gum line that affects one in three adults globally and has been linked to systemic health issues like heart disease and diabetes. But the challenge is no one cares about their gums.

Culturally teeth are the rock stars of oral care for the Instagram generation. The category is consolidating around generalists. And big brands have tried to crack the problem but failed. In short toothpaste for gums is an oral care oxymoron. To grab attention previous work had catastrophized the issue but this just drove a wedge between the consumer experience and the brand. In 2015 GSK decided parodontax needed a global re-­‐set to reconnect the consumer with the brand.

A small brand globally we needed to think outside the box and therefore turned to a framework for driving behaviour change in technology. The global marketing programme focused on 5 levers to increase motivation and make the brand more accessible.

Evidence suggests this is changing category behavior, making the need for a specialist toothpaste for gums, compelling. Today we are growing at +35%, 7x faster than the market globally13. We are the fastest growing global toothpaste, well on our way to doubling sales by 2021. We think the story of how we are changing the world’s oral health and lessons learnt along the way is worth sharing with the wider marketing community.

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(Please note: parts of this case study may have been redacted for confidentiality purposes.)