Vietnam · Infant oral care · Category creation and launch
A product in a market with no awareness, and no behaviour to attach to.
Dr.Papie 1+ was the first oral-care gauze for children from one year old ever sold in Vietnam. There was no category, no consumer habit, and no shelf to compete on. We had to create the behaviour before we could sell the product.
The brief
Three jobs at once.
Objective 01
Launch the product
Bring Gạc Dr.Papie 1+ to market as a genuinely new proposition rather than a line extension.
Objective 02
Build awareness and a distinct USP
Establish recognition against competitors in adjacent, better-understood categories.
Objective 03
Drive conversion and widen distribution
Support sales and open new channels, in a category the trade had no template for.
Preventing decay starts with removing plaque
We positioned Dr.Papie 1+ as the tool a mother uses to clean plaque thoroughly with her own hands — the prerequisite step in preventing early childhood tooth decay.
Strategy
Don't fight the incumbents. Find the gap they can't fill.
The obvious move was to compete with familiar products — decay sprays, children's toothpaste. We advised against it. Instead we went after the core value of the product itself: two scientific mechanisms combined to remove plaque as completely as possible.
That let us claim an unoccupied position rather than take share in a crowded one.
The unrecognised truth
It isn't the sweets.
Plaque, not confectionery, is the direct cause of tooth decay — and ordinary cleaning methods cannot resolve it completely. That fact was available, and almost nobody had built a product story on it.
Insight
The wake-up moment.
What she already feels
Only her own hands feel clean enough
A mother is only reassured when she has cleaned her child herself — it simply feels cleaner. A clean, healthy, good-looking set of teeth is her result and her quiet pride.
What she doesn't yet know
Her current routine isn't finishing the job
Standard hygiene doesn't fully remove the thing that actually causes decay. Naming that gap is what converts a comfortable habit into an urgent one.
A mother's careful hands, a thousand layers of plaque gone
Product name: Gạc ngừa sâu sún răng Dr.Papie 1+. Positioning statement: the first decay-prevention gauze in Vietnam for children from one year old. From zero awareness, Dr.Papie 1+ became the prerequisite step in a mother's oral care routine — leading a new consumer behaviour in the category rather than following one.
Execution
Go wide and go deep, at the same time.
A new category needs volume to be noticed and authority to be believed. Running only one of those fails.
Tactic · breadth
Blanket the feed
AR content on TikTok, a viral photo set across social, social seeding at scale, and booked KOL and KOC reviews — enough repetition for an unfamiliar product to register.
Tactic · depth
Educate with authority
Meta content across trusted mom & baby and health press, livestream talkshows with doctors on the aFamily and Dr. Blue channels, and a "Dr Yes or No" expert video series.
Distribution
We didn't just sell it. We taught the trade to sell it.
A category that doesn't exist has no sales script. So we built the selling network alongside the demand — then turned it into a competition.
In December 2024 we ran Shoppertainment Race Festive Season with Dr.Papie on TikTok — 7 to 29 December, 49 dealers competing on live selling. Each built content around Gạc 1+, cooling towels and bath foam, embedded shopping links in posts and livestreams, and chased both revenue and engagement targets.
The prize structure rewarded different selling behaviours rather than raw volume alone: Ngôi sao tăng trưởng (Growth Star), Ngôi sao bền bỉ (Loyal Star), Ngôi sao review, Chiến thần vượt mức and Bậc thầy chốt đơn. The Growth Star took TikTok ad budget, stock discounts and a livestream slot alongside our influencers — support that compounds instead of a one-off cash prize.
Where it landed
Category creator became category leader.
Two years after launch, the position we built for Dr.Papie is the one the market now takes for granted — and aFamily has covered it as a national Vietnamese brand.
Clinical trust
Chosen by leading hospitals
Adopted and recommended at major paediatric institutions including the Central Paediatrics Hospital and Thu Cuc Hospital — the endorsement that matters most to a cautious mother.
Recognition
National brand honours
Top 10 Best Products & Services for Consumers 2024, Top 10 National Strong Brands 2023, plus international quality certification.
Results
Zero to category leader.
From a product with zero awareness to the first choice in a routine that didn't previously exist — leading consumer behaviour in a brand-new category.
Keep reading
More work in women & family.
Each of these ran in the same market, through the same owned publisher, community network and KOL bench.
Social Athena — Women & Family Practice