The marketing objective for Colgate Fresh Energy Gel was to grow Colgate Palmolive’s share in the freshness segment. To counter Close Up’s claim of “Confidence through fresh breath”, the brand was re-launched on the platform of “Long lasting fresh breath”.

The tangible personal benefit of long-lasting fresh breath laddered to benefit of social acceptance. The creative idea was to therefore communicate “Breath so fresh that everyone wants to talk to you”.

Pre-testing the TV commercial revealed that respondents who played back “Talk to me” showed a high comprehension of the main idea “Breath so fresh that everyone wants to talk to you”.

Hence, the communication goal was: To increase consumer involvement with the communication by making “Talk to me” the buzzword during the brand launch.

The media task was to deliver a cost effective but high impact window that helped leverage “Talk to me” stand out of the media clutter so as to register a high recall. The key ideaExploit a high visibility media property by creating an innovation around it that was relevant to the brand communication.The idea was during the live broadcast of the match, whenever two or more players, umpires, commentators talked to each other on the field, a 3-4 second pop-up with the message “Talk to Me” and the Colgate Fresh Energy Gel brand logo appeared on the screen. The media executiona. It was executed in a manner that was extremely relevant to the basic message: Colgate Fresh Energy Gel gives you breath so fresh that everyone wants to talk to you.b. The connect between the message “Talk to Me” & the media environment, players conferring on the field, was created in a relevant & engaging mannerc. The deal was to get the blurbs to appear at least 30 times during each match. d. It was very visible and had high impact as it was built on a strong media platform, Cricket. Due to its uniqueness, it also managed to stand out of the ad clutter.e. It almost appeared like an endorsement of “Talk to Me” by the world’s best cricketers, without of course having to pay the players for the endorsement.f. Used in tandem with the regular TV ads on these matches, “Talk to Me” blurbs had a multiplicative effect on the ad saliency g. There was a thorough evaluation of the costs on the innovation. It was negotiated at 1/9thth the cost of a regular commercial on the same media property.h. We managed to upstage Close-up’s associate sponsorshipi. Day After Recall studies showed extremely high recall for the “Talk to Me” blurb. The key objective for Colgate Fresh Energy Gel was to achieve high saliency during its re-launch. What was required was a media vehicle, which could provide high visibility for the brand and help build instant top of mind awareness.The ideal vehicle for the brand to ride on was, therefore, Cricket. Cricket in this country is a religion and not a sport; it is to India what football is to Brazil. In an otherwise fragmented TV viewing environment, cricket is one vehicle that achieves highest involvement and stickiness. The flip side is that it is a high clutter environment, with almost all big brands being present either on air or on ground or both. The only window, then available to an advertiser, where his audience would be attentive to his brand communication is during the actual playing time itself.

The task for media was therefore to blend the brand communication into the game itself, without being too intrusive. The media team at TME turned this ground reality into an opportunity. To make the brand tagline “Talk To Me” the buzzword, blurbs with “Talk to Me” written prominently appeared on the screen whenever two people / group of people conferred on the ground. Colgate Fresh Energy Gel was slated for a re-launch in July 2001. Its competitor and leader in the freshness toothpaste segment, Unilevers’ Close Up had pre-empted this re-launch with a new brand communication.

Close Up had signed on as associate sponsor for the Coca Cola Cup (July – Aug ’01), a tri-nation cricket series of seven one-day internationals between India, New Zealand & Sri Lanka. This was being telecast live on DD1, the #1 terrestrial channel beaming into 36 million TV homes, & SET Max, the Hindi satellite channel with 3.4 million TV homes.The task for Colgate Fresh Energy Gel was therefore very tough: to be as salient as Close Up with lot lower monies.In this context, getting the channels to incorporate the “Talk to Me” blurbs during the match was commendable: a. It exploited a great media opportunity by creating an innovation that was relevant to the brand communication.b. By virtue of its uniqueness, it managed to stand out of the ad clutter c. Managed to upstage Close-up’s associate sponsorshipd. Almost like an endorsement of “Talk to me” by the world’s best cricketers.e. Used in tandem with the TV commercials on these matches, these had a multiplicative effect on the ad saliency

The key objective for Colgate Fresh Energy Gel was to achieve high saliency during its re-launch. What was required was a media vehicle, which could provide high visibility for the brand and help build instant top of mind awareness.The ideal vehicle for the brand to ride on was, therefore, Cricket. Cricket in this country is a religion and not a sport; it is to India what football is to Brazil. In an otherwise fragmented TV viewing environment, cricket is one vehicle that achieves highest involvement and stickiness. The flip side is that it is a high clutter environment, with almost all big brands being present either on air or on ground or both. The only window, then available to an advertiser, where his audience would be attentive to his brand communication is during the actual playing time itself.

The task for media was therefore to blend the brand communication into the game itself, without being too intrusive. The media team at TME turned this ground reality into an opportunity. To make the brand tagline “Talk To Me” the buzzword, blurbs with “Talk to Me” written prominently appeared on the screen whenever two people / group of people conferred on the ground.