Pond’s, the popular brand for cosmetics, applied its brand name to toothpaste releasing Pond’s toothpaste. Pond’s has done a blind test and people were happy with the toothpaste. So Pond’s thought it will extend itself into the toothpaste category. But when Pond’s actually released the toothpaste with the Pond’s name on it, it is a complete failure and was not picked from the shelves.
This is again an excellent example of the failure to understand the core values of the brand and trying to extend into other categories. Pond’s is always known for its feminine beauty and has its brand identity surrounded around the beauty. Pond’s is associated with freshness, fragrance, and clean skin. So marketers have thought to extend with the attributes of freshness and cleanness into the toothpaste category.
One of the important things to note here is the way the products are used thought both are used for cleanness and freshness. We clean our tooth with toothpaste and we spit it out, whereas a Pond’s cream is something which we believe will give us clear skin when it goes inside the skin. So, we apply the cream and leave it. The perception of cleanness and freshness is taken so differently in different products. Though the attributes are same, how they are achieved also plays a role in the perception.
This is exactly what I was pointing in my previous blog. Marketers should understand that you cannot simply extend a brand to other categories because the core values are the same.
Brandalyzer 
A in-depth Brand Study for failure of Ponds Toothpaste : http://chatbhandaar.brainmaalish.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=419&action=edit.
A in-depth Brand Study for failure of Ponds Toothpaste : http://chatbhandaar.brainmaalish.com/ponds-toothpaste-a-failure-owning-to-brand-perception/
Unilever tried to increase its market share in oral care products in the early 2000s by introducing a toothpaste under the Pond’s brand. The brand had previously been successful at moving from skin creams to soap products, and the jump to toothpastes seemed like a logical next step.
Customers, however, thought otherwise. The queer thing was, there was nothing wrong with the product itself: a study found that participants could not tell the difference between Colgate and Pond’s toothpastes in a blind test.
The problem with Pond’s toothpaste was the brand. Soap and skin creams are usually associated with the sense of smell, while toothpaste is associated with taste. Moreover, Pond’s products generally have topical uses, whereas toothpaste is used to brush the inside of one’s mouth. For these reasons, the company could not transfer Pond’s brand attributes to its toothpastes successfully.
http://goo.gl/7XuRoS