BLT - Blis Technologies

[emearg]

Half an hour later, and there are 54 entries on google. Looks like 1000 may not take long. I wonder how you decide if a campaign like this achieved what you wanted?

Hard to know Simla. I am sure CulturedCare have some ideas:
1) 1,000 Tweets were sent within the one month time frame they have set
2) Early sales targets are met
3) Their CulturedCare website receives a lot of visitors?
4) There is considerable chatter about their new product out there on the internet)
5) Goodness knows what else!

From a Blis/Frutatrom point of view, at least we know enough ingredient has been sold to make 1,000 packs of gum, and presumably enough product to make the retail launch this month possible.

[emearg]

Not much of interest in this but I thought I would post anyway:
http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/...cals-target-US

CulturedCare has started its free gum giveaway thing on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/CulturedCare

They have picked up 40 new followers in the last two and a half hours.

Their followers count is now up to 173.

It will be interesting to see how rapid the growth is. A little like rabbits breeding I suspect...

It has gone from 134 at 10am yesterday to 224 today at the same time. 90 new followers in one day.

[Klink]

This seems to be new competition from the USA:

Oragenics http://www.oragenics.com/

Has launched "evora plus" http://www.evoraplus.com/

"EvoraPlus™, from Oragenics, is a one-of-a-kind probiotic mint that naturally supports gum and tooth health while freshening breath and whitening teeth.
Healthy gums and teeth
EvoraPlus™ probiotic mints naturally support gum and tooth health with the powerful key ingredient of patented Probiora3™ probiotics. These natural resident beneficial bacteria of very healthy mouths set up a “base camp” in the mouth and crowd out the problematic, harmful bacteria.
Learn more about healthy gums and teeth…
Fresher breath
The key to beating bad breath is keeping the bad bacteria that inhabit the mouth in check. The blend of beneficial bacteria incorporated into EvoraPlus™ works to balance the population of the periodontal bacteria that create bad breath. By binding to the teeth and deep beneath the gum line, the beneficial bacteria work to inhibit and exclude the destructive bacteria from overpopulating and creating imbalances in the mouth.
Learn more about naturally fresher breath…
Naturally whitens teeth
One of the most powerful and unique properties of the probiotic blend used in EvoraPlus™ is their ability to release a low level form of hydrogen peroxide as a normal by-product. The continuous low doses of hydrogen peroxide created by the Probiora3™ blend of beneficial bacteria naturally whiten teeth without creating tooth sensitivity or gum irritation."

Containing three probiotics blended as " ProBiora3™"

http://www.probiora3.com/probiora3/

I particularly noted that this website lists quite a number of delivery mechanisms (which Blis seems to have been struggling with)

http://www.probiora3.com/product-applications/

"Some ideal applications for ProBiora3™ include:

Gels
Powders
Gum
Fast-melt tabs
Toothpaste
Dissolvable strips
Foods
Powdered Beverages
Novelty frozen desserts
Ideal for pet products"

Whether these delivery mechanisms have actually been developed is not clear to me.


I quite liked the "http://www.rttnews.com/ViewPR.aspx?PrID=540337&SMap=1"
"Teddy's pride" application - oral care and fresh breath application for your dog

[brucea]

Alas, I doubt whether the "Teddy's Pride" or even Bioguard could deal with bad breath problems in cats and dogs as I understand this is usually caused by tartar build up which the vet can remove by de-scaling the animal's teeth so their claims appear a little dubious. Chicken necks and special cat biscuits are used as diet to minimise tartar build up on cat's teeth. As for competition - that is GREAT as it raises the awareness of probiotics and oral health in general and I am sure Blis K12 would successfully complete with "EvoraPlus" and the market would be big enough for more than one player (think of the number of companies selling St John Wort). Interesting though to see they have GRAS approval which must bode well for Blis K12. This might be simplistic, but I think Blis K12 has more credibility than this new product...

[emearg]

A few random thoughts:

From what I can see it looks like this company is taking a similar approach in the US as Blis took in NZ five years ago. They have a retail product and are trying to get retailers to sell it.

Have they patented the active probiotics? Are they special or do they exist naturally?

From a quick read it appears that this product works by filling up your mouth with good bacteria so there isn't room for the baddies. Obviously the user has to try to provide a good environment for this to occur. While that is pretty cool, it isn't really that impressive is it?

The teeth whitening bit does sound pretty good. That would appeal to people if it is proven not to be harmful to a recipient's teeth.

It seems to me that as far as the science is concerned Blis K12 has the upper hand in that it is the dominant species in the oral cavity. That and the fact it targets and destroys the bad bacteria meaning it doesn't have to wait for space to colonise the oral cavity. It is the only probiotic that does that. Should it be necessary, Frutaroms marketing department (and their customers) will be able to leverage that to outshine this competition.

The market is plenty big enough for multiple competitors. The market needs to be grown. This should help.

If the EvoraPlus was to be sold as an ingredient I don't see any reason why it couldn't be combined with Blis K12 and Blis M18 for some products. Toothpaste would be an obvious choice.

Their list of delivery mechanisms sound good but as you query Klink they don't say if this is a list of product formats or product concepts.

Actually (terrible English I know to start a sentence with actually but what the hell) it is interesting to check out the Blis website. Is this a new page?
http://blis.co.nz/?go=Corporate&c=Co...roduct-Formats

I don't remember seeing all the items on it? Powder? Mouthwash powder? Gargle powder? Do any of you know about products based on these? Are we talking about Rapid EVE Gargle here? I would have thought the last one is covered, but the other two?

Them having GRAS (I can't find that anywhere but Brucea says it is so) gives them an opportunity. They have to take advantage of that opportunity...

[brucea]

The reference to GRAS approval can be found at http://www.probiora3.com/product_introducing-probiora3/
I think this product is good news for Blis as it can only raise the profile of oral probiotics in general.

[emearg]

I think what this will achieve is get a lot of people seeing the words Blis K12 for the first time. It will create some brand awareness. It will obviously do the same for the CulturedCare Probiotic Gum. Many of the tweet recipients won't be able to buy the gum but it will get some thinking...

Actually the tweet doesn't contain the words Blis K12 so unless recipients go the CulturedCare website they won't see the branding Blis K12.

The number of followers is now over 250. It is increasing slower than I originally thought it would. Having looked at a few of the tweeters profiles I was correct about a lot of them not being eligible. Too few followers, incomplete profiles, don't live in Canada etc. The best news is that lots of them have hundreds of followers. So, there will need to be many more than 1,000 new followers for the competition to close, and a very large number of people will receive the tweet.

It is an interesting concept...

[simla]

I thought the gum tweet was fairly well worded for referring to what it was selling (although gum rather than K12, as you say) and providing an easy link. If you look at some of the tweeters own twitter lists, you'll see huge volumes of marketing twitter washing around the place, and it is astonishing how few of them mention their products at all - which seems like a huge lost opportunity to me - or are even comprehendible. However, given the general banality of most twitter I've ever seen, I have to wonder how many people actually read any given tweet. (I would have thought tweets would have a bigger future if there was room for about 100 more characters in them, so that they could contain more meaning.)

Still, most marketers seem hot to trot on twitter, so presumably there is evidence it all works to a useful end, and obviously we wish them luck here.

Thanks for pointing out the new product, Klink. I agree that more competition is probably good at this stage. I don't think the Blis format list has changed from when I last saw it, Emearg, but I could be wrong.

[simla]

Did you guys spot this new detail on the CC facebook page about when the gum is hitting the market? http://www.facebook.com/CulturedCare..._edit_sections

"We're getting many inquiries from our American friends about how they can buy our new Probiotic Gum w/ BLIS K12 when it launches in late January.

It will ONLY be distributed in Canada to start... BUT you will be able to purchase it online from one of our Canadian retail partners once the gum hits the shelves (forecast for mid-February 2010)."

[Cannibal]

Good fun indeed!

Considering there is Blis, Frutarom, Imagenetix and Costco in the chain I doubt very much that Blis gets $5 per sale. Having said that, I have no idea how much they will get, but if I was to play numbers I would think $2 or $3 might be a more realistic figure?

But you might be right at $5

It is really hard to know who will get how much of the pie under the structure that is in place.

It is unlikely to be as high as even $2. Swanson sell Oral Ultra Probiotic with 3 billion K12 for US$5.99 for 30 tablets.