You're focusing on the micro ("WTF is each one of these ridiculous micro variations?") and not on the macro (Colgate is absolutely dominating that aisle, and fully 75% of the toothpaste choices are Colgate while Crest and Aquafresh fight over the scraps)
It's frustrating and unnecessarily complicated.
Of course some people will rebel, and say "screw Colgate" and pick some other brand, and some people will just literally pick the cheapest option no matter what.
But again, if I'm Colgate or whatever their parent company? I absolutely love the way that toothpaste aisle looks. 75% of it is Colgate Red and I bet the sales figures hew pretty closely to that.
It's called Tyranny of Choice - https://longevity.stanford.edu/the-tyranny-of-choice/
> Too many options can decrease the likelihood of making any decision at all
(Although ironically, toothpaste shopping is quite easy once you know the correct answer is "the cheapest brand at the store that has fluoride in it")
Whenever I find marketing copy like this, I use it to filter out the whole company's product lines. This heuristic never fails, because I don't even know what I am missing out on.
I try not to buy big brand / mega corporate products. No Colgate or Crest and both own a number of the less known brands, those are out. This leads to only one or two options to choose from.
This is why I look at products manufacture not just their name.
I would really like website like https://isitbigbeer.com/ to help filter out all products and brands that hide behind multi-naming schemas.