The encyclopedia · Marketing & Brand · Marketing decision · 2023–2024
Colgate turned India's dessert habit into a nightly brushing reminder
80% of urban Indians skip night brushing, so Colgate showed people 'brushing' with sweets and put reminders where cravings hit — shops, apps, dessert reels.
Colgate-Palmolive
the move
Colgate's problem was behavioral, not brand-related: 9 out of 10 Indians suffer cavities, yet 80% of urban Indians brush just once a day and many rural consumers brush only occasionally. Brushing at night would cut cavity risk by about half.
The insight was that Indians cannot resist sweets after dinner — chocolate, laddoo, kulfi — making dessert the last thing that touches their teeth. So The Sweet Truth showed people brushing their teeth with sweets instead of toothpaste, dramatizing what ending the night with sugar does.
The message had to live where the behavior happened: reminders were placed beside dessert ads, outside sweet shops, on food-delivery apps and on dessert reels where audiences doomscroll for a sugar fix at night, turning craving moments into brushing reminders.
why it works
- Sweets are the strongest existing nightly habit to hitch onto.
- Dramatizing 'brushing with sweets' made the risk visceral and memorable.
- Placing reminders in dessert contexts intercepted the craving at its peak.
- Launching in the festive sweet season made the message maximally relevant.
what transfers
To build a new habit, attach it to an existing, stronger one; put the message where the rival behavior happens, not where the brand's own category gathers.
what came after
The campaign earned two finalist selections at the 2024 One Show and recognition at Kyoorius and LIA. Colgate framed it as a long-term behavior-change mission rather than a one-off festive ad, aiming to shift the category from morning-only to twice-daily brushing across India.
references
- The Sweet Truth — LIA 2024 entry
- The last thing millions of people put on their teeth is sugar and not toothpaste
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