Colgate is taking the brand laddering to the next level in their 2020 campaign. The brand over time has moved from a functional benefit platform of strong teeth and healthy gums into a higher-level attribute of smile and confidence. The new ad has further strengthened the new higher emotion-based positioning based on the power of a smile.
The ad strikes the audience with the surprise twist at the end of the commercial and brings a smile to the faces. The brand in a way has taken the risk of bringing emotion into the pool of category benefits. The familiar white coat, chalk and ink theme has given way to a series of the emotion-based campaigns with brand benefits such as confidence, new beginning etc. What it brings for the brand is a sense of freshness because the earlier functional benefit based ads were around for a long-time and a sense of boredom has set in at least in my case as a customer. The new ad helped to bring in a freshness to the brand and the unfamiliar plot brings a twist to the campaign.
