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Executive Summary
Overview. The toothbrush business in the United States experienced a dramatic increase in growth in 1992, moving from an annual rate of 9.3% to 21%. This surge in growth is due primarily to the expression of greater interest by aging baby boomers, which has led to the introduction of a new category called super-premium brushes. Super-premium brushes sell at retail for an average price that is 41% higher than that of brushes in the professional category and, yet, they account for 35% of unit and 46% of dollar share in a market expected to reach 305 million in unit and $548 million in dollar sales in 1992. Colgate-Palmolive, the leader in U.S. unit volume, has not yet introduced a super-premium category offering. Thus, our dollar share results lag our impressive unit share performance. We begin to change that in 1993 with the introduction of our first super-premium brush, Precision. This plan details the approach that we will take to retaining our leadership position in unit share and capturing the lead in dollar share in the U.S. toothbrush market.
CP holds the number one unit share position in two of the three segments of toothbrush customers, the Cosmetic and Uninvolved segments. We are a distant number two in the Therapeutic segment, which currently favors the Oral-B brand. The Therapeutic segment is the only growth segment of the market, increasing in relative size (by units) from 38% of the market in 1983 to 46% in 1991, while the Cosmetic segment has gone from 26% to 21% and the Uninvolved from 36% to 33%. Moreover, Therapeutic brushers pay, on average, more per brush than do the members of the other segments. I ...