Colgate-Palmolive:
Cleopatra in Quebec
Group members: 刘小利、谭秋霞、苏
琪、徐晓青
Question 1
What are the that suggest
acceptance for Cleopatra after the
French success? Critically evaluate
the market research prior to the
launch. Any significant differences
which would alert you to potential
problems ahead of the launch?
Similarities between the French and
the Quebec markets：most people in
Quebec are the future generations of
French, but they are not the native
French, more than 80% families using
the French as their mother tongue.
This shows that, the culture of
Quebec is similar, and the other
products, such as Lux, which shows
the strong Europe image was quite
popular.
However, Quebec is not French. They
are living under the similarity culture,
but they have their own living style,
the different economic condition , and
the pursuits are different. Quebec is a
province of Canada, the culture of the
whole country are different from
French. Maybe they will not pay so
much on a soap.
By the way, in 1985, Cleopatra soap
had own the 10% market, it means
that Cleopatra had access many
French families, and became one of
the think of their lives. But Quebec is
a bigger market ,there are more
competitors: Dove , Lux, and so on .
Many of the people in Quebec are
using the other brand of soap. They
do not care if there are any
differences of soap among various
brands they prefer to the price.
——Reported by 谭秋霞
Question 2
How would you evaluate the
positioning of Cleopatra in
Canada? Any alternative options?
----Answered by 徐晓青
From the viewpoint of Colgate, "high
quality and high price" in Canada can
put Cleopatra in a high position as in
France do, but it may remind
consumers of "high class" and
"luxury" which they won't connect with
soap.
They might want something usfull and
substantial. So I think there should be
another option which lower down the
price.
Question 3
Evaluate the promotional launch
and the advertising campaign.
Were mistakes made that could
have been anticipated?
----Answered by 徐晓青
The promotional launch and the
advertising campaign of Cleopatra in
Quebec are completely different from
the other companies in the same
industries, they expect direct
demands from customers by arousing
their interest and bypassing retailers
who have a significant effect on
selling.
Therefore they would lose supporting
from retailers and get some unreliable
information. And obviously, the
promotional launch and the
advertising campaign are costly and
high-level which frighten most
ordinary consumers thereby losing a
large market. So a misunderstand for
the product do exist.
Question 4
On the basis of the consumer
research data collected after
launch, I have some suggestions
about what went wrong.
----Answered by 刘小利
Some data from the research:
About the reasons
why the customers
don’t like this
product:
About the reasons
why they don’t use
Cleopatra:
About the use condition:
1. Product positioning
. After Cleopatra’s big success in French,
Cleopatra’s “premium quality, premium priced”
positioning maybe is a wrong choice in Quebec
because of the highly competitive soap market
here. And then the following rough advance
research directed against high-working women
make Cleopatra considered as women Beauty
Soap, luxury goods. This narrowing the scope of
the target market and actually in Quebec, for the
average consumer, affordable and practical utility
bath soap has a bigger market potential. That is
ignore the important policy “national policy”.
2. Marketing channel :
Colgate-Palmolive sell through the retailers in
Quebec only which cause the problem of being in
a very passive position and easy to be controlled
by these retailers.
The abundant advertising campaign and
promotion transaction doesn’t work as expected.
Delivery company soap coupons to each family,
people can shop in exchange for the soap at the
same time draw, not so attractive and encouraged.
And it promoting without a business with
intermediately and these retailers may consult in
the bad relationship with them so that may cause
the problems in selling.
Question 5
If you were Steve Boyd, which of
the three options you pursue?
Justify your choice.
----Answered by 苏琪
If I were Steve Boyd, I will choose the
third option. In my opinion, one of the
substantial reasons that Cleopatra
can’t obtain the success is the strategy
was not well prepared. Colgate in
Canada's subsidiary company imitated
France's pattern blindly without the
system investigates in local market
thoroughly, neglected the difference
between the French market and the
Quebec market.
So I will choose to change the
strategy as the third option instead of
continuing to carry out the original
plan as the second option which
causes more nonessential wastes.
After the analysis of the case, I think
Cleopatra still has potential market in
Quebec.
Therefore, I will not choose the first
option and directly give up the effort I
did before. Product can be changed if
necessary, and native element also
can be added into product to meet the
consumer's demand.