There are changes afoot in the Indian oral care market. More and more people are switching to toothpaste and toothbrushes after years of using traditional toothpowder. As a result, the market is growing at pace with significant opportunities for businesses to increase revenue. But there’s a major barrier to it growing further – and that’s the price of a toothbrush, which is too high for huge swathes of the population living in poorer, more rural areas of the country. In particular, a specialist toothbrush for sensitive teeth is even more expensive.

Our Sensodyne Daily Care toothbrush, specifically designed for the Indian market, eliminates this barrier. Rural consumers can now walk into their neighbourhood store and buy a premium quality toothbrush for sensitive teeth, for as little as 30 rupees (that’s around 30 pence) – a first for the brand owner, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), in the Indian market. A move that gives Sensodyne access to an entirely new market and makes better oral hygiene more affordable for millions more people in India.

We meticulously unpicked the entire process behind the design and manufacture of a toothbrush so we could create one cost effective enough for the thousands of small store owners, scattered across rural India, to sell. The result is a design process that’s 37% faster than a typical toothbrush production cycle and a toothbrush that, despite being made using 45% less material, still feels like a toothbrush should. The new Sensodyne Daily Care toothbrush is a featherweight – weighing in at just 9.4 grams, 7.6 grams less than the industry standard and lighter than GSK’s target weight for the design.

More efficient to produce and transport, our design has delivered crucial cost savings that GSK is passing on to the consumer at point-of-sale. In the first six months since its launch in November 2017, an impressive 10 million toothbrushes have been sold, meaning GSK has exceeded its initial business delivery forecasts four times over. The new toothbrush is also driving wider distribution for Sensodyne – an important performance measure for the design – increasing Sensodyne’s toothbrush retail outlets by 17%. Crucially, and as a direct result of the success of the new toothbrush, Sensodyne has increased its share of the toothbrush market, GSK’s main business objective behind the project, beating gains made by Sensodyne’s incumbent toothbrush range in India, over the same period.

Our client, Ankit Garg, Brand Manager, Sensodyne – India and James Houghton, Global Design Director, Sensodyne, say,

“Feedback from our trade partners is that the product’s value proposition – a quality Sensodyne toothbrush
at such an affordable price – is attracting our target customers. The overall design package successfully communicates this and is a key driver of successfully helping millions of people manage their tooth sensitivity.”

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