Few Brazilian brands arouse as nostalgia as Kolynos, a name that for decades was present in the routine of millions of families. Those who grew up between the 70s and 90s certainly remember the characteristic taste, green and yellow packaging and advertising campaigns linking the brand to innovations in oral protection and lifestyle.
But after all, of dental creams?
Under iconic mothers like “only the dentist can take better care of their teeth”, “Ah, change the mood!” And “Ah… Kolynos. Live Life!”, The company led the toothpaste market for decades and starred in a history of antitrust in the country, where it landed in the mid -1910s.
Market domain
In the 1980s and 1990s, Kolynos dominated the Brazilian dental cream market, with about 52% of sales, while its main competitor, Colgate, had approximately 27%. The brand’s success was driven by aggressive and memorable marketing strategies, translated into its iconic.
One of the signs of the company’s change of direction came in the 1990s. In 1994, Anakol, the Wyeth-Whitehall division responsible for Kolynos in Brazil, closed its ARDEA unit in Guarulhos, which produced aluminum packaging for dental cream, dismissing about 400 employees. The change reflected the adoption of plastic packaging rolled by the company, as well as strategic adjustments to maintain financial health in the face of market transformations.
End of Kolynos: Acquisition and Cade
The decisive point for the end of Kolynos in Brazil occurred in 1997, when Colgate-Palmolive acquired the company for $ 1.04 billion, after a dispute with Procter & Gamble for the purchase of Kolynos operation in 14 countries.
Continues after advertising
At that point, Kolynos held 52% of the Brazilian toothpaste market – after the acquisition, the market share Added to Colgate reached more than 70%, according to reports of the time. The concentration of the market led Procter & Gamble to provoke a reaction from the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (Cade).
The Brazilian antitrust agency decided to intervene: a, for four years, the Kolynos brand specifically on the line of dental creams – toothpaste and toothbrushes, for example, were left out.
Initially, the company would temporarily remove the brand from the market and launch an alternative, the smile. Folha de S. Paulo published that at the time, the expectation was to maintain the same level of sales, with an initial production of 45 million tubes per month, and an investment of US $ 40 million in 1997 to strengthen the new brand, half intended for advertising campaigns on television and the rest for promotions and merchandising at points of sale.
Continues after advertising
The campaigns made it clear that the replacement was temporary and that the manufacturer continued the same, reinforcing the continuity of the original formula. Kolynos, however, was not produced again.
