Project example 4 – Toothpaste Brand

DISCUSSION GUIDE

Objectives
 Understand usage & shopper behaviour of Sensodyne users,

 Identify strengths and weaknesses of Sensodyne,

 Identify strengths & weaknesses of Colgate ProRelief & Colgate Total,

 Ultimately provide recommendation for Colgate to strengthen and differentiate variants

in its portfolio - Colgate Total, Colgate Sensitive & Colgate Pro Relief, especially in
terms of brand communication & POS activities.

Total Timing 115 minutes

1. Warm-up & Introduction 5 minutes
2. Perceptions of Sensodyne, Colgate Pro Relief & Colgate Total 15 minutes
3. Usage and journey to the brand 25 minutes
4. Brand imageries 15 minutes
5. Shopping behaviour & Sensodyne POS 20 minutes
6. Understanding the condition of sensitive teeth 15 minutes
7. Reactions to Colgate Sensitive 10 minutes
8. Learn from past communication 10 minutes

Note: the following discussion guide proposes a comprehensive set of questions that
won’t necessarily be all asked: it is made to be used as a pattern to which the moderator
will adapt during the course of the interview on a flexible and discriminatory way.

5 minutes 1. Warm-up & Introduction

Objectives
Creating the  Introduction of moderator, company & purpose of the research
rapport  Discussion flow and rules
 No right or wrong answers
 Everybody invited to speak freely and share opinions
 Be creative/be expressive
 Turn off mobile phone
 Length of the discussion: around 2 hours
 Introduction to the company, purpose of the research.
 Two way mirror & recording the discussion.

 Introduction of the respondents

 Name
 Family status
 Occupation

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15 minutes 2. Perceptions of Sensodyne, Colgate Pro Relief & Colgate
Total – product
Objectives
What are the  Grouping exercise
parameters of  What oral care products are you using?
toothpaste  Which toothpaste brands & variants are you using?
universe  Which toothpaste brands and variants do you know? What else?
today? What else?
 Write down on flashcards and put on table.
How do  Can you group these products into groups so that products in the
consumers same group are similar and each family is different from the
perceive others? You can group in any way that you like.
Sensodyne vs.  For each group, ask:
Colgate Pro  How is this group different from the others? Why?
Relief &  How are elements in this group similar?
Colgate Total?  What is the name of this group?
 What do you use it for? Why?
 Who would be the typical user of this group?
 When would they normally use products in this group? Why?
 What are the strengths of this group? How come?
 What are the weaknesses of this group? Why?
 Is there anything unique about this group? What is it?
 Probe for Sensodyne, Colgate Total & Colgate ProRelief group(s).
 Are these brands any different from other brands in the same
group? How?
 If the three brands/variants are put in the same group, ask
respondents to do the grouping exercise only for group.
 Probe for any spontaneous differences & similarities
mentioned.

 Sensodyne vs. Colgate Pro Relief & Colgate Total

 Alien exercise for each brand
 Imagine a foreigner who does not know anything about
toothpaste... How would you describe Sensodyne/ Colgate
Pro Relief/ Colgate Total to this person?
 What is it?
 What does it do?
 How do people often use it?

 Associated user for each brand

 Imagine a person who only uses Sensodyne/ Colgate Pro
Relief/ Colgate Total walking into this room.
 How would that person look like?
 Is that person male or female?
 How old is he/she?
 What is the condition of his/her teeth?
 How is he/she doing oral care?
 What is important to he/she in terms of oral care?
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  Deprivation
 If tomorrow, Sensodyne/ Colgate Pro Relief/ Colgate Total is
no longer available, how would you feel?
 What would you do?
 Would you use anything to substitute it?
 If yes, what would you use? Why?
 If no, what is so special about Sensodyne/ Colgate Pro Relief/
Colgate Total?

25 minutes 3. Usage & journey to the current brand

Objectives
 Usage (briefly)
How are  What toothpaste brand/ variant are you using now?
consumers  Are you using only one brand/ variant of toothpaste or more than
using one at the same time?
Sensodyne/  You said you are using only one brand/ variant of toothpaste...
Colgate Pro  How are you using it?
Relief/ Colgate  How often do you use this toothpaste?
Total?  You said you are using toothpaste for sensitive teeth, is the
way you are using it now similar to how you use normal
toothpaste which is not for sensitive teeth? Yes? No? Why?
What are the  You said you are using more than one brand/variant of toothpaste
drivers & at the same time, can you tell me more about this?
barriers of  How do you use these toothpastes?
Sensodyne,  Is there any specific occasion for each type/brand of
Colgate Total toothpaste?
& Colgate Pro  When do you use each type of toothpaste? How come?
Relief?  What is the size of the toothpaste that you normally purchase for
you/ for your family?
What are the  What size do you prefer? How come?
triggers for trial
 Is this/ Are these toothpastes for your consumption only or do you
of Sensodyne?
share with your family? How come?
 If not sharing, which brand/ variant of toothpaste are other
What makes
members of your family using?
them keep
purchasing  If sharing, which members of your family are sharing it with you?
Sensodyne?  Can you tell me more about how they use the toothpaste? When?
How many times?
Hypothsis:
 Source of  Journey to the current toothpaste brand/ variant (focus)
awareness:  Think about the current toothpaste brand/variant that you are
foreign using....
brand,gift  How did you start using this toothpaste?
from  What happened then that made you wanted to try it?
Vietkieu PR  What makes you stay with it until now?
&  Have you ever switched or thought of switching to another
communicati toothpaste brand/ variant?

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 on.  What made you switch or want to switch?
 Purchase  Probe for POS elements, promotion, word-of-mouth,
triggers: communication, imported/ foreign brand, price...if mentioned.
Aggressive  For switchers:
in-store  What makes you stay with the switched brand/ variant?
promotion,  What about this brand/ variant that is better than the brand/
Delivers variant that you were using previously?
therapeutic  Are you satisfied with the current product that you are using? How
benefits come?
beyond core
essence of  Grouping exercise with the real products
for sensitive  Expose products that respondents are using and products in
teeth, sensitive/ multi benefit segment - Total Cleanmint, Total
Affordable Professional Whitening, Total Professional Clean Gel, PS
price for an Sensitive Expert , PS Complete 8, Colgate Sensitive Pro Relief,
imported Sensodyne Total, Sensodyne Whitening, Sensodyne Cool Gel &
brand Sensodyne Fresh Mint.
 Ask consumers to do the grouping exercise again.
 Quickly probe for the differences between groups.

 Debate
 Now we will divide into two teams. Each team will be the sale
people of one toothpaste brand/variant. Your task is to sell your
team’s toothpaste brand/variant to the other team.
 Pro Relief vs. Sensodyne
 Colgate Total vs. Sensodyne

15 minutes 4. Brand imageries

Objectives
Current  Brand personification (briefly)
imageries of  Imagine Sensodyne/ Colgate Pro Relief/ Colgate Total became
Sensodyne vs. human. How would you imagine that person?
Colgate Pre  Gender, age, appearance, occupation, hobbies & personality.
Relief &  What would friends of this person say about him/her?
Colgate Total  What would people gossip about him/her?
 If he/she were someone in your life, who would he/she be?
 What is your relationship with this person?
 How do you feel about him/her?
 What is the role of that person in your life?
 After getting all the imageries, clarify:
 Where do these come from?
 What about Sensodyne/ Colgate Pro Relief/ Colgate Total that
makes you relate it to this image?
 What did they do or say?

20 minutes 5. Shopping behaviour & Sensodyne POS

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Objectives
Understand  Behavior
shopping  How often do you shop for toothpaste?
behavior &  Who do you buy toothpaste for?
which specific  When do you usually buy toothpaste?
tactics of  Where?
Sensodyne  With whom?
encouraging its  How many toothpaste tubes do you often buy each time?
trials
 What size of toothpaste do you regularly buy? What makes you
choose this size?
What are the
 How much do you usually spend on toothpaste?
drivers for
repeat  How much do you usually spend on oral care products overall?
purchase for  What other oral care products that you purchase?
toothpaste for
sensitive  Story telling
teeth?  Give each respondent a paper with a picture of supermarket shelf
(to set the mood).
 Close your eyes and think about the last time you purchase
toothpaste....I want you to bring that experience to this paper, by
drawing and writing.
 So you are in the toothpaste section now...
 What is the ambiance be like?
 What did you notice? What did you hear? What did you see?
 Which brand did you pick up? What did you look at?
 Did you talk to anyone?
 Fill in the thought bubble: I finally bought (toothpaste brand &
variant) because....

 Recall of POS elements

 Do you remember any advertisements or activities of Sensodyne/
Colgate?
 List on the flip chart
 What do you think about these?
 Do they have any influence on you? How?
 Can you give me some examples?

 Sensodyne & Colgate promotion & premium offers

 Expose to all Sensodyne & Colgate promotion & premium offers.
 Imagine you are in a supermarket, which offers would definitely
attract you and make you pick up the products?
 Have you ever seen these?
 If yes, where did you see it?
 What did you do after seeing it?
 Have you been drawn to any of these offers any time you were
at the store/supermarket?
 Can you tell me more about it?
 Did you buy Sensodyne/Colgate then? How come?
 How about the rest? Is there any offer that is more attractive than

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 the others?
 What are they? How come?
 What about the much less attractive offers? What do you think
about these?
 Check consumers’ reactions toward the 220gr toothpaste tube
size:
 What do they think?
 What do they think about 220gr toothpaste tube for
40,000dong vs. Discount for two 160gr toothpaste tubes?

15 minutes 6. Understanding the condition of sensitive teeth

Objectives
 Oral health
How do  Think about your oral health...
consumers  What are you happy with it? What else?
realize that  What are you not happy or concern? What else?
they have  Write on the flip chart.
sensitive
teeth?  Perceptions & attitude toward sensitive teeth
 You mentioned “sensitive teeth”, can you tell me more about this?
What are the  What are the symptoms?
causes &
 When did you start noticing these?
symptoms of
 How do you know that you have “sensitive teeth”?
sensitive teeth
in their  Probe: dentist, word-of-mouth, articles, advertisement, activities...
perception?  What could be the cause of “sensitive teeth” do you think?
Anything else?
What are their  Are there different types or levels of sensitive teeth?
solutions for  If yes, what are they?
this?  How are they different?
 What cause this difference?
Is there any  If no, how come?
need gap  Imagine tomorrow you would no longer have sensitive teeth, how
relating to would you feel?
sensitive
teeth?  Solutions for sensitive teeth
 How are you dealing with sensitive teeth?
 Probe: choosing food & drink, avoiding hot/cold water, product –
toothpaste, toothbrush, mouth wash..., brushing teeth style,
dentist...
 How are these solutions different?
 Can you rank these solutions by importance?
 What makes this solution more important to you?
 What makes this solution less important to you?
 Which ones are you doing most often? How come?
 Is there any solution that you think would be effective in dealing
with sensitive teeth but you can not practice regularly?
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  What is it?
 How do you know that it is effective?
 How often do you do this?
 What makes it not easy to be done regularly?
 How do you know about all these solutions?
 Which sources of information is more important to you? How
come?
 Do you know anyone who also has sensitive teeth?
 Anyone in your family?
 Is that person doing anything to deal with sensitive teeth?
 What are they doing?

 Wrap up
 Overall, how do you feel about your solutions for sensitive teeth?
 Is there anything that you would like to change in the current
products for sensitive teeth? What is it?
 How about toothpaste for sensitive teeth? Do you have any
suggestions for this?

10 minutes 7. Reactions to Colgate Sensitive

Objectives
How do Exposure to Colgate Sensitive pack & price
consumers
perceive  Spontaneous reactions
Colgate  Have you ever seen or heard of Colgate Sensitive?
Sensitive?  Where/ from whom?
 What do you think about this toothpaste?
How is it  If you were in a supermarket and saw this toothpaste, would you
different from pick it up? How come?
Sensodyne/
Colgate Pro  Associated product & usage
Relief/ Colgate  From what you see, how would you describe this product?
Total?  What does it do?
 How do you know?
 How should it be used? How come?
 Which product can it substitute for? Why?
 Who is it for? Why?

 Uniqueness
 Is this product new? How come?
 Is there any product that is similar to this one?
 Which product is it?
 What is similar?

 Persuasiveness
 If tomorrow you see this product in the supermarket, would you
want to try it or not? Yes? No? Why?
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  What do you think about Colgate Sensitive compared to
Sensodyne/ Colgate Pro Relief/ Colgate Total?

10 minutes 8. Learn from past communication

Objectives
 Recall of communication
 Are there any TVCs of Colgate/ Sensodyne that you remember?
 Which ad? Can you describe?
 What is it about?
 How do you feel about that TVC?

Now forget all that we have been saying about Colgate...I want you to
watch some TVCs...

 Exposure to Colgate & Sensodyne communication (Colgate

Total, Pro Relief & Sensodyne)
For each TVC, quickly ask for:
 Spontaneous reactions
 Message
 Associated product
 Uniqueness
 Credibility & Persuasiveness
 Brand image

THANK YOU AND CLOSE.

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