Saturday, May 24, 2008
Advice to toothpaste manufacturers
The world needs a good three ounce tube of toothpaste.
Twenty months ago, the crackerjack thinkers at the Transportation Security Administration limited air travelers to containers for their liquids, gels, and pastes that could hold no more than three ounces. Yet today when you go shopping for toothpaste in a typical drug store or supermarket in a town with people who travel by air a lot -- say, Princeton, New Jersey -- you cannot find a three ounce tube. Your choices are a minuscule "sample size" tube of 0.75 ounces, which is really not enough to last for more than a few days of anything more than Third World brushing, or four ounce (and larger) containers that blow the limit. The former are a useless rip-off, and the latter are verboten.
The only saving grace is that the TSA guys usually do not bust you for the four ounce tube. When they do, though, you draw the full pat-down search and are stuck buying an emergency tube for a king's ransom in the extortionate "gift" store in the airport or at your destination.
So, why is it that almost two years after the passage of this rule Colgate-Palmolive cannot get its act together to fill and stock three ounce tubes? Go ahead and label it "traveler's size" and charge a premium over the four ounce. C'mon brand managers, get a clue!
8 Comments:
By 
Escort81, at
Sat May 24, 05:41:00 PM:
What we have here is a failure of the marketplace (apologies to Cool Hand Luke)?
I am just about old enough to remember when MBAs wanted to get jobs that led to brand management positions instead of jobs at investment banks or consulting firms. I am not sure I lay this failure entirely at the feet of the P&G brand managers, who have lost a fair amount of "channel power" over the last decade. Buyers at the big drug store retailers should be better at running their predictive demand and inventory models by SKU -- it actually helps store profitability! Stock outs are definitely annoying to the consumer.
By 
, at
Sat May 24, 06:03:00 PM:
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By , at
Sat May 24, 07:10:00 PM:
TH, My advice is to save your sample tubes from the dentist. I just returned from a month away and two sample tubes took care of it.
That is, until C-P wises up.
By Andrewdb, at
Sat May 24, 07:34:00 PM:
the other issue is the "lost sale" that does not get reported - the sold out is reported, but who do they capture what someone asked for but that wasn't a SKU? TH - how does your company handle that?
By Miss Ladybug, at
Sun May 25, 02:29:00 AM:
I used to travel for business, post 9/11, but before the nonsense with the 3 ounce rule. Before I got smart and had 2 toothbrushes and 2 tubes of toothpaste, I did forget to pack said toiletries a time or two, and the front desk was able to accommodate me. Yeah, not the brands I would prefer, but it worked...
By , at
Mon May 26, 12:40:00 AM:
ULTRA BRITE TOOTHPASTE TASTE YOU CAN REALY FEEL.ULTRA BRITE GIVES YOUR MOTH SEX APPEAL. can anyone remember those great old commercial jingles?
By Purple Avenger, at
Mon May 26, 08:30:00 AM:
Fix the TSA rather than the tooth paste.
By , at
Mon May 26, 05:33:00 PM:
um,how much toothpaste do you use, dude? a pea-sized dot is usually enough. You have been brainwashed into high consumption by toothpaste commercials that show toothpaste dispensed with one of those pastry squeeze-thingies.
