Dr. Best

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Dr. Best
Owner / user GlaxoSmithKline
Introductory year 1953
Products Dental care products
Website www.dr-best.de

Dr. Best is a well-known brand of dental care products in German-speaking countries, especially toothbrushes, which is now owned by GlaxoSmithKline .

Although the brand has existed since 1953, it only became known again in the late 1980s when, as part of an extensive brand relaunch, a successful advertising campaign advertised the flexible toothbrushes that were new at the time (“The smarter toothbrush gives in”). As a result, their market share increased from originally only 6% to market leadership with 40%.

Beginnings

The brand was developed in 1953 by the company M + C Schiffer . The brand was sold in 1970 when the company specialized in supplying toothbrushes only. In 1974 the brand owner, Lingner-Werke in Düsseldorf, merged with Fischer-Werke in Bühl to form Lingner + Fischer . These in turn merged with the SmithKline Beecham group in 1989 and have been part of GlaxoSmithKline since 2000 .

In its long history, the brand has always lagged behind its competitor Blendax ; after the market share had become smaller and smaller in the 1970s, it was only around 6% in 1987 compared to almost 60% of Blendax's share.

Brand relaunch

At the end of the 1980s, Lingner + Fischer discussed whether to move away from the Dr. Best should separate them or rebuild them. The strengths of the brand such as its widespread awareness and its name, in connection with the lack of innovation in the market, ultimately gave the impetus to want to try a new start. The fact that toothbrushes had hardly changed in decades was seen as an opportunity for a fresh start.

The brand was elevated to the status of a “power brand” within the company and was given two objectives: it should achieve a double-digit market share and achieve an independent positioning. Market research results led to the realization that customers wanted to feel safe from injuries to the gums. The development team implemented this requirement with a resilient neck and a two-component structure (rubberized area in the brush handle).

It was planned to launch the new toothbrush in the summer of 1988. A team from the Gray advertising agency headed by Lindsay Cullen was commissioned to develop a campaign . Cullen wanted to give the brand a personal touch and came across Chicago-based dentist Dr. Earl James Best. Best (born April 3, 1924 in Chicago, Illinois; † June 26, 2002 ibid) had studied dentistry at Loyola University Chicago and graduated with a bachelor's degree, from 1957 to 1969 he was head of the endodontic department . His appearance brought the campaign “persuasiveness and increased credibility”.

On May 2nd, 1988 the model “Dr. Best Plus Flex ”was launched and changed the market abruptly. Dr. Best “launched the first flexible toothbrush. This not only clearly positioned one's own brand, but at the same time repositioned conventional toothbrushes as rigid and dangerous for gums and teeth. ”At first, the competitors refused and worked against the new competitive feature“ flexibility ”. That soon changed, however, because as a result of the new launch, the brand had already acquired a market share of 15% in the first year, and a real innovation competition began in the industry. In 1996 it had a market share of 35.4%, in 2000 it had a market share of 42%.

Commercials with "Professor Doctor Best" (Earl James Best), who demonstrated the new advantages of toothbrushes, were to prove themselves over many years and made him "a PR icon who stood up for a disposable product with scientific reliability". In particular, the key visual of the tomato pressed by an oscillating head toothbrush but remaining undamaged was effective and "ideally visualizes the main advantage of the oscillating head toothbrush, namely avoiding injuries to the gums during dental care". In 2002 long-time actor Earl James Best died of cancer at the age of 78. His role was continued with new actors.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Veronica Wong: SmithKline Beecham Consumer Healthcare: Dr Best Flex Toothbrush , In: Susan Bridgewater, Peter Doyle, Chartered Institute of Marketing (ed.): Innovation in marketing , pp. 30–42, 1998, ISBN 0750641215
  2. ^ Company history on the GlaxoSmithKline website, online , accessed May 22, 2009
  3. ↑ a b zeit.de: Dental with high profile Today Dent | ZEIT ONLINE , accessed December 2, 2014
  4. ↑ a b Julie Ana Mendieta: E. James Best, 78; pioneer in dentistry. Chicago Sun-Times, 2002, HighBeam Research, Online ( Memento of the original from July 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed May 20, 2009 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.highbeam.com
  5. ↑ a b Reinhard Schwarz: From the brand to corporate identity - a clear profile secures the market position In: Der Klinikarzt, Volume 36, Issue 3, 2007
  6. ↑ a b Uwe Ellinghaus, Bernd Erichson, Tanja Zweigle: Which TV spots work best? , In: Magdeburger Wissenschaftsjournal 1/2000, p. 36, PDF Online
  7. ↑ NDR: The biggest advertising lies
  8. ↑ Sonja Kastilan: Last Brush , in: Die Welt, June 29, 2002 online , access on 7 April 2009