\f\f\f\f\fstimulating shortiterm increases in market share that could compromise the equity of the brand, its protability, and its longrterm competitive advantage. In Brazil, historically, the brand's primary consumers were from the A and B social classes. In 2010, however, in order to reach the potential middle class in Brazil, Listerine introduced a new product, Essencial, which was roughly 15% cheaper than the average brand price (in terms of price per ounce) and was distributed through the poorest regions and neighborhoods in the country. The objective of Essencial's pricing strategy was to match Colgate's lower average price in this category at that time. One year after the launch, the new product had already reached 2% volume market share. Art said that J85] had introduced Essencial to increase market penetration and grow the category. Even though the plan for Essencial had been designed before he joined the company, Art was in charge of its execution. Thus introducing this more affordable product called Essencial was one of his first steps. As it turned out, J&J realized that not only middleiclass consumers were buying this new productiso were wealthier Brazilians.4 J85] did some research to understand the reason why this was happening. Although the Essencial formula contained alcohol (as did the traditional Listerine Cool Mint), further investigation based on some market research led to the discovery that the perceived strong flavor of Listerine had been putting off new consumers, not the price. Also, some dentists had not been recommending the product to their patients because of the product's alcoholibased formula. In 2012, as the brand had gotten closer to rniddleiclass consumers with Essencial as well as in response to the new avor opportunities, the company launched Listerine Zero, which was a less intense mouthwash. This was one of Art's next steps for four reasons. First, Iisterine Zero created a point of parity with Colgate's less intense antiseptic mouthwashes. Second, this allowed J85] to bring new consumers to the category regardless of their SEL, and this product would actually become popular among consumers from every social class. Third, it helped the company gain more visibility at the point of sale through higher product variety and gains in share of shelf. Finally, the brand could intensify its approach toward dentists. Because Listerine Zero was not an alcoholrbased product, some of the dentists who were concerned about Listerine's alcoholibased formula started to recommend Listerine Zero to their patients. As a matter of fact, Brazil had the highest number of dentists in the worldmore than 240,000.5 Art commented that the \"dentist is one of the most important inuencers of the category's overall use by consumers. We had focused on providing the dentists with some consistent research that had shown the importance of the use of antiseptic mouthwashes.'7 Despite these successes, in 2012, the company's executives reported that, \"Vie need to increase the visibility of the category to consumers.\"5 So far, Art's steps had been made mostly toward product innovationEssencial and Listerine Zero and increasing consumer awareness and product visibility at the point of sale. In 2013, to increase consumer awareness and trial rates in the mouthwash category overall that could benefit Iisterine specifically, the brand rolled out the \"21rday challenge\" campaign,7 which promised consumers a refund if they were not satisfied with their purchase after 21 days. Listerine increased its TV spending, which resulted in higher gross rating points than any other brand in the mouthwash category had ever earned. The ability to reach such a large audience allowed them to successfully promote this campaign. According to Art: The campaign aimed at improving the oral care routine of Brazilians. This was our way to increase consumer's condence in the category by lowering some perceived nancial risks if someone had not found the product benecial. It was a promotion without having to distribute free samples of the product that could have had higher costs and less effectiveness. The 21day challenge was very successful to the brand. In the same year, Listerine launched a TV commercial called \"Boca\" (Portuguese for \"mouth\")_ According to Art, he had to face major internal challenges in order to get the content of this TV ad approved by J&J for further distribution. At that particular moment, Art believed that Listerine had to better balance the brand's traditional rational copy messages with an emotional one. He explained, \"Instead of communicating the use of Listerine by showing the bathroom environment only, we (Listerine) need to be more connected with the dayitoiday life.\" In this TV ad, Art explained: \\We had shown what someone's mouth goes through in a day with the support of different scenes to illustrate a variety of activities performed by people since they woke up in the morning until late in the night. \\We also wanted to encourage the market to use mouthwash with a certain frequency. This was a breakthrough to the company because the ad's content had been more rationalioriented since 2007, whereas this one offered a good balance between rational and emotional messages. To inuence the trial rate, the company had intensied its efforts to put Listerine mouthwash in public bathrooms for free so consumers could try the product.8 In the meantime, Colgate had been using its complete oral care portfolio in Brazil (toothpaste, toothbrush, dental oss, and mouthwash) to strengthen its mouthwash product line by offering more promotion at retail stores than the competition. They started to offer free mouthwash when consumers had purchased other Colgate products. Exhibit 5 and Exhibit 6 show some examples of shelf position and marketing campaigns from these two brands. In response, Art's next step was to encourage the brand to increase the visibility at the point of sale. In 2014, the brand introduced a new, largerrsize stock keeping unit (SKU). The new package sizes helped to increase the brand's instore visibility and were used as a trigger to offer promotions that would not compromise the protability of the brand, such as \"purchase 750 mL, get 1.5 L.\" That is, rather than giving free samples of the product, Listerine's promotion had stimulated the usage index and supported increase in the frequency of use of the product. In fact, recency (i.e., the length of time since a customer's last purchase) was a concern to market this category. The brand management realized that consumers of antiseptic mouthwashes were not going to retail stores to purchase this category frequently. Larger package sizes and this type of sales promotion had allowed Listerine to increase the brand's usage index. As a result, based on a survey purchased by J85], Art mentioned that around 2014, Listerine had the highest penetration among category loversi73'J/o. This was approximately 10 percentage points greater than the second brand. Further, Listerine category lovers had spent 100/0 more than the competitor's category lovers and had purchased, on average, 200 mL per year more. Traditionally, J85] as a company had a strong presence in the drugstore channel. This was supported by the company's portfolio of nonprescription drugs (e.g., Tylenol), and through its different business units, such as Janssen Pharmaceutica, which carried a large portfolio of prescription drugs. Therefore, Listerine as a J&] product had power and a strong presence in the drugstore channel in Brazil. But Colgate had a more representative presence than Listerine in the grocery store channel (e.g., supermarkets). As Art described, \"After 2014, we decided to also prioritize the grocery store channel besides the drugstore format.\" Larger SKUs had been especially important for manufacturers to sell to consumers through supermarkets. As Listerine had innovated in its portfolio with larger SKUs, new flavors, and massive communication campaigns7 the brand management took this opportunity to target distribution efforts toward the grocery channel too, and it gained visibility at different types of retail stores. At the end of 2013, Listerine had 120/0 of numeric distribution in the grocery channel and the relevant competing brand had 14%. By the end of 2014, Listerine had reached 13% of numeric distribution and the competing brand had 11%. In the same period) Listerine had 96% of product category volume (i.e., numeric distribution, weighted by penetrated outlets' share of sales of all product categories), and the main competing brand had 94%. As a result of the marketing initiatives, Listerine was able to increase volume market share in the category from 37.7% (2013)) to 38.4% (2014)7 and to 41.7% (2015). The main competitor's volume share went down from 31.4% (2013) to 26.9% (2015). Art was condent that he was making the right decisions for the brand and taking the necessary risks to avoid some initiatives that would have resulted in shortterm results rather than a more sustainable advantage in the mouthwash market in Brazil. In addition to the positive market share and brand profitability results for Listerine, he admitted, \"The success of Listerine is the foundation of my career at J&J.\" \fU UUUU Exhibit 2 Choosing the Right Metrics for Listerine Brand Management in Brazil Classication of Households in the Mouthwash Category % Market Penetration (Category Lovers, Occasionals, % Households (Brazil, Mouthwashes) and Triers) f l l 4.6% E Leavers-1 E Leavers2 III Category Rejecters ' ________ r \"m % Spending (Category Lovers, Occasionals, and Triers) Category Lovers: % households that purchased the category in the last two years. The average purchase in this category by all households is more than 2.6 Uyear. 333% Occasionals: % households that purchased the category in the last two years. The average purchase in this category by all households is less than 2.6 L/year 34.3 Triers: % new households that purchased the categoryin the last year. Leavers-1: % households that use mouthwashes but have not purchased the category in the last year. Leavers2: % households that have not purchased the category in the last two years. Category Rejecters: % households that are not likely to use the category \f