Colgate-Palmolive hands Palmolive’s digital growth engine to a D2C specialist

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Colgate-Palmolive India is changing how it sells and markets Palmolive, handing the brand’s D2C and e-commerce operations, including consumer-facing advertising and customer relationships, to Bombay Shaving Company. Colgate-Palmolive will continue managing Palmolive across modern and general trade while retaining control of product innovation, quality and supply chain.

The division of responsibilities matters because management has acknowledged that Palmolive’s India business has underperformed. Chief executive Prabha Narasimhan said the company had tried building the D2C model internally but concluded, “honestly, I don’t think we were best in class.”

The partnership therefore looks less like an advertising mandate and more like a capability reset. Palmolive sells products including shower gels, washes and liquid hand washes in India, categories where discovery, digital merchandising, repeat purchases and customer data can play a larger role than in Colgate-Palmolive’s dominant oral-care franchise.

There is also history behind the arrangement. A Colgate-Palmolive affiliate invested about ₹18 crore for a 14% minority stake in Bombay Shaving Company in 2018, establishing a relationship well before the current Palmolive mandate.

The reset comes as Colgate-Palmolive increases spending behind growth. Its advertising and promotional expenditure rose 33.7% year-on-year to ₹251.86 crore in the first quarter of FY27, while consolidated net profit increased 7% to ₹343 crore and net sales reached ₹1,591 crore.

For Palmolive, the test is now measurable: whether specialist digital execution can improve consumer acquisition and repeat demand without weakening the advantages of Colgate-Palmolive’s established offline distribution. Early results have been described by management as showing “green shoots”, but the company has not yet disclosed detailed performance metrics.