Posted on Nov 25, 2013

Can The Value of Care Make a Positive Business Impact?

Colgate-Palmolive is #165 on the Fortune 500 list of companies. They have 3 core values: Caring, Global Teamwork, and Continuous Improvement. Their motto is: “Colgate World of Care.”

Is it really possible for a company earning $17 billion a year to be caring and make a difference? At Colgate, it appears they are actively living the value of CARE.

Care means to feel concern or interest; providing attention or treatment. Some consider this a softer value that could appear at odds with the hard, profit-driven world of business. Yet, Colgate is proving that care can be a differentiating value.

A Great Oral Care Program

One of their programs is called Colgate Bright Smiles, Bright Futures. This aligns perfectly with their business focus in Oral Care (it’s neat how they have even incorporated the value “care” into each of their business categories).

Leveraging the brand power of their flagship product, Colgate provides free dental screenings and dental hygiene education to children around the globe. Their goal is to help build healthy habits, self-esteem, and a foundation for success.

Is it working?

Since they started the program in 1991, Colgate has reached more than 700 million children in 80 countries. Their goal is to reach a billion kids by 2020. That’s pretty impressive!

In the United States alone, Colgate has eight large mobile vans – each one almost the size of a mobile home – that can screen two children at a time. These vans travel to under-served rural and urban communities, and are staffed by volunteer dentists and hygienists. In addition, Colgate employees volunteer their time in support of this program. Each year, they visit over 1,000 towns, providing dental screenings and education to more than 10 million children.

Knowing the importance of dental hygiene, and teaching children how to brush their teeth properly, Colgate is making a lasting impact for millions of children and future generations.

So what’s the business payoff for the significant investment in this “care” program?

Securing the Business Future

This oral care program is a brilliant business strategy for Colgate. The millions of kids who are being served by Colgate are building an affinity to the brand early on. As they grow up, they will associate healthy teeth with Colgate toothpaste and brushes.

Then, when these kids grow up and have children, they will share their positive brand affinity with their children. In other words, the investment in children today will pay off for Colgate in the years to come (in fact, it has been paying off for them since they started the program back in 1991).

Of course, the critics of such a program would see this as completely self-serving. They view this as a marketing campaign to simply sell more product.

Yes, it’s designed to help preserve Colgate’s dominant position in the oral care market. But the total cost of this program is not insignificant and the payback is not immediate.

The long-term investment is sound. And equally important, the value of care has become a differentiating value for the company. Just consider that the professionals in the dental industry, the teachers at the schools served by the program, the parents of all these children – and all the employees at Colgate – know that Colgate is a company that cares.

Note that you don’t have to be a billion-dollar company for the value of care to make a positive business impact. It can start small, in a single community, with a specific group of people. Then – ideally – these same people will someday become your best supporters of your brand.