Colgate launched frozen dinners — consumers couldn't eat past the toothpaste brand

In the early 1980s, Colgate-Palmolive, the company behind the world's best-known toothpaste, decided to extend its brand into frozen food entrees under the name 'Colgate Kitchen Entrees.' The logic was brand extension: leverage a trusted household name to enter a new category and capture shelf space in the frozen-food aisle.

The line failed almost immediately. Consumers could not dissociate the Colgate name from toothpaste and oral hygiene. The idea of eating a Colgate dinner triggered an instinctive revulsion — the brand meant 'spit it out,' not 'swallow.' Retailers were skeptical, shoppers were confused, and sales never materialized.

Colgate Kitchen Entrees was pulled from the market within a few years. It became one of the most-cited examples in marketing textbooks of how brand extension can backfire when the parent brand's associations are incompatible with the new category.