'Colour' push for Twin Lotus brand

"It's an education campaign, telling people not to judge just by appearance," said managing director Piti Leelerdphun. A 60-second TVC that spearheads the campaign shows an African man helping to retrieve a balloon for a little girl. He does not harm her as her mother fears. This will eventually be cut to 15-second spots, and run to year-end. "From the beginning, people have told us about their problems with the colour, and asked us to change it," Piti said. "But it's a herbal toothpaste and we can't change the colour of the herbs." The alternative, Piti added, was therefore to make the shade of the toothpaste more acceptable to consumers. The TVC also takes the brand beyond its main provincial markets, and onto city screens. "It will help lift our image," said Piti. "Before this, we did our marketing mainly in the provinces, so city consumers (attributed) a lower image to our brand." Twin Lotus will further woo city consumers via mobile units at supermarkets, department stores, and office buildings in Bangkok. The company hopes that this, and a repackaging exercise completed last month, will grow its share of the five billion baht toothpaste market from 14 per cent to 17 per cent by year-end. "That's our target for the year and if we can't reach it, we'll increase our (marketing activities and) budget," Piti said. The leader of the herbal toothpaste segment also expects to move up a notch in the overall industry, taking over the number three spot from Close-Up. Colgate and Darlie currently lead the market with a combined 60 per cent share, followed by Close-Up with around 16 per cent. White toothpaste makes up about 51 per cent of the total market, and herbal, 22 per cent. sm