Business Strategies Of Oral-B Company

Marketing Mix

Product Strategy:

Oral-B has produced hundreds of innovative products over the past fifty years. Oral-B

adds imaginative and therapeutic products for use in the professional practice and at home.

Along with Oral-B products the buyer gets not only excellent value, but also quality, innovation,

efficiency, and outstanding customer service. Their product offerings have established them as

the market leader since the 1960's!

To the industrial dental market Oral-B offers 21 products in their current 2002 catalog.

Their is outstanding product depth in their lines as well as many innovative products. The

company offers many children's lines of toothbrushes, as well as oral care products tailored to

the individual's needs. Consultative selling of their products is a valuable practice with Oral-B.

Orders of products, sizes, variations, dentist's name and address on the products, whatever the

dentist requests, Oral-B strives to meet the individual and unique needs of all their customers.

Oral-B's product catalog is unique. Oral-B offer dentists a wide array of product

purchasing tactics. Dentists can order in any quantity they wish, realizing cost savings in larger

orders. If a dentist is unsure of a newer or untried Oral-B product, the company has no problem

sending the dentist samples to try out at no charge. This type of strategy strengthens the buyer-

supplier relationship for future dealings.

Oral-B also includes demonstrations of its products to dentists upon request, before the

purchase process takes place. Oral-B will send a sales rep to a dentist's office to perform

demonstrations and answer any questions the dentist may have about the product offering. This

form of customer responsiveness and one on one communication only strengthens the position of

Oral-B making the sale.

To manage the impact of currency changes on foreign-denominated profits, the company

primarily uses product sourcing. This strategy was necessary for Oral-B in their global product

distribution approach. Oral-B profits dipped in 1999 due primarily to higher marketing expenses

to support new product launches.

Oral-B takes advantage of its powerful brand image to market its product in the industrial

market. Its toothbrushes are simply known as "the dentists toothbrush," and from interviews

conducted with local dentists, they hold a high level of brand loyalty to all Oral-B products, over

its competitors.

The Product Life Cycle (PLC) is very important to Oral-B. Oral-B's competitive

advantage is that it excels in the development and introduction stages of the cycle, beating their

opponents to the opportunities, thus creating primary demand and a first mover's advantage.

Their product designing and ability to bring them to the market with rapid results is second to

none. When Oral-B introduces their product, they waste no time educating their target market

on the usefulness of their products. The growth stage is where most of Oral-B's current products

sit. Sales and profits are growing with these innovations at a fast rate. The maturity stage is

very evident for Oral-B as well. Many of its products created years ago still are lodged in this

stage and still have a market segment that demand them. Once Oral-B notices products that

have been lingering in the maturity stage with profits dropping off slightly, before they hit the

decline stage, Oral-B is already ready to introduce an upgrade to these products to the market,

creating new demand, as the products in late maturity die off before ever hitting a steady decline

phase.

Distribution:

Oral-B distributes its products either directly to the dentists through their own sales reps,

or often through independent distributors, which are companies with their own sales personnel

who place the dentists order from the Oral-B catalog, then order the products from Oral-B

themselves, and ship them to the dentist. This practice is in sense a desk jobber. The distributor

(in a few of the interviews conducted it was Patterson), does not take title to the products, but is

the agent that carries out the transaction. Oral-B receives market coverage, sales contact, order

processing, and market intelligence from this distributor, while the buyer (dentist) receives

product availability, product assortment, fitting order quantity, credit and service.

Promotion Strategy: