Colgate: A New Approach to Digital Media Strategy with Emphasis on Creativity

Colgate is an international consumer goods company with a strong focus on oral care products. Part of the Colgate-Palmolive group, it holds a leading position in the personal and oral care sector.

In this sector, competition is fierce, with major players having similar market strength as Colgate. The digital strategies of these players are mostly based on traditional marketing actions, aligned with the overarching corporate strategy. The same applies to Social Media, where a need for differentiation through a creative and digital-first approach was crucial. Most content shared across these platforms had a uniform profile and focused on product-related content with a purely clinical/medical tone.

Colgate aimed to significantly differentiate itself in the digital space from the rest of the market by reshaping its brand presence on Social Media. The goal was to make these platforms a core part of the communication strategy. The key challenges we faced included:

• Creating a modern and up-to-date image for Colgate’s Social Media presence, aligned with current trends and best practices
• Finding the right creators whose philosophy and brand identity matched Colgate’s, ensuring both content quality and strong user resonance
• Treating each product line differently. Given the varying target groups, we needed to identify the corresponding online personas and tailor the content and media plan accordingly
• Introducing innovative storytelling formats to boost engagement and differentiate messages in an oversaturated industry

Together with Colgate, we designed the brand’s content strategy, choosing Instagram as the main communication channel. We focused on authentic faces to showcase the real-life usage of Colgate products by end users. We collaborated with content creators of various styles and profiles, emphasizing emotional connections with the audience through storytelling.

We engaged the right creators and leveraged Instagram Reels and Stories to promote two main product lines: Colgate Total, with the hashtag #TotallyYou & Colgate Max White Ultra, with the hashtag #123White

The media strategy was structured across three funnels:

Upper Funnel, aimed at brand awareness: Primarily informative Reels were used, with all creators participating

Middle Funnel, aimed at engagement: Included participation in offline events (Madwalk, Athens Fashion Week), additional Reels from creators, contests, fun/educational content with trending themes, and PR boxes sent to micro-creators for additional reach

Lower Funnel, aimed at influence and shaping consumer habits: Contests and shopper activations took place in supermarkets (Athens/Thessaloniki), where social media content was created and supported by static creative assets

Colgate’s refreshed digital & creative strategy led to impressive results. The campaigns reached approximately 4 million users, accumulated over 3 million video views, and brought in 8,000 new Instagram followers, significantly expanding Colgate’s customer base.

Looking at other metrics, our results showed that the products sparked conversations — community management revealed a 3x increase in user comments and messages.
The campaigns generated over 38 million impressions, with an average frequency of ~5.
The average engagement rate reached an impressive 20%.

This outstanding campaign performance earned us a Bronze Social Media Award in the Best Use of Branded Content for Creators category — bringing joy and pride to everyone who worked on this excellent result!