How VML Is Helping Colgate Own the Smile

Last year, VML’s global CCO for Colgate-Palmolive, Fred Saldanha, noticed that the North American market was “craving something that lives in culture” and after a successful social campaign around the Met Gala, the mission was set: to get Colgate to connect with a diverse society, in a different and modern way. 

Seeing Gen Z’s aversion to traditional advertising, Fred explains that the team took inspiration from the influencer culture and branded entertainment that the youth are happy to consume on platforms like TikTok - resulting in the creation of Colgate’s ‘My Smile Is My Superpower’ campaign earlier this year. This campaign reminded people that their own smile, no matter the size, shape or shade, is beautiful, and was led by a music video titled ‘The Beauty of Gaps’ - a cover of Katy Perry’s empowering anthem ‘Roar’ that used the unique tooth gap whistle as its main instrument.

“If you want to be perceived as a brand that understands the audience, you should not follow the traditional routes,” says Fred, “but bring something that feels fresh and that can connect easily with the audience. So forget ads! Let’s do a music video!”

The agency took the 200-plus-year-old brand even further out of its comfort zone, with painted murals, TikTok posts, projections on buildings in New York, wild posting and more to accompany the music video. The video itself broke a lot of Colgate’s rules too, using a different font and not showing the product in the first five seconds (or much at all). “It wasn't an idea to promote our products, it was to promote this idea that your smile can be something really powerful,” he says. 

Though potentially frightening for the historically traditional advertiser, Fred explains that the Colgate team was reassured by the video’s concept and shareability. Meeting the audience “off-Broadway” in spaces like Twitch and TikTok, where they naturally are, “helped the clients to, for the first time, understand the power of a very disruptive media plan.”

“We tried to bring something that is uniquely Colgate, but is made for and by young people,” adds Fred. “During production, the kids were amazing, because they were living that moment and they felt so empowered. It was a pure joy to watch.”

He continues, “That was the whole goal of the campaign - instead of victimising people, or pointing to the bullies - it was just [about] trying to celebrate that uniqueness. Because they [Gen Z] celebrate it every single day.”

For Fred, the ambition to lead on Colgate-Palmolive for VML, when he joined five years ago, came from the brand’s truly global penetration - which has its challenges as well as its advantages. Because of Colgate’s omnipresence in almost every thinkable market - not to mention the many other brands in skincare, homecare, petcare and more under the Colgate-Palmolive umbrella - each division has developed its own local nuances to bring its region’s culture to life in the marketing. “So my role was to make sure that as we build these brands across all these markets, we could make it more unique and like one single brand. Of course, the brand will have some accents, but it has to come from the same place.”

Working closely with the regional teams, Fred is very hands-on and helps identify opportunities both on a local scale and with international platforms like ‘My Smile Is My Superpower’. “Thankfully, I have great teams behind me,” he says. “The music video. for example, was created by a female team here in the New York office - also a very diverse team. We really focus on making sure that not only the product [is inclusive] but also the people behind the product understand what inclusivity and diversity is, and how you really connect with the people you're talking to, using people that actually can have a bigger role in those conversations.”

“So it's not just the same people,” he adds. “We are always trying to diversify our teams and that's why I think more and more you're going to see Colgate show up in different, unique ways - and that makes us so proud.”

Since the merger of VMLY&R and Wunderman Thompson into VML, Fred also shares that he is interacting with new talent on a daily basis who are interested in working on Colgate as well. “Once we launch something, we see the creative community and also everyone at the office, not just praise the work but actually want to be involved in the next project. It’s so funny to see that, now we are one single team and have new people that work with the [ex-] Wunderman Thompson portfolio, there's this, ‘Who's going to launch the next campaign? Because I want to work on that one!’. So the talent is definitely bigger and better now with the merger, and hopefully will have an impact on the next campaigns.”

Looking ahead to VML’s future work for Colgate, Fred says that the brand is increasingly going to “own” smiles - not just because they have teeth-related products, but because of their powerful messaging and strong commitment to taking care of people’s smiles - and in turn, their confidence, happiness and more.

“We are changing the way people are looking at Colgate and we're making sure that you can feel the brand more. We want to own the smile in a very unique way. So instead of being a product-led brand, the master brand campaign is very emotional - [going] from function to emotion.”

“It's not easy with a brand like this,” he adds, “but the success we’ve had is outstanding… I think we are building in the right direction and the recent successes are giving a lot of hope both internally and on the client side to keep investing and doing more stuff like we’re doing. Colgate is a brand that you really trust as a product - we just need to build that love. And that’s so much easier when you have a product that holds that love.”