Key Drivers of Performance in CPG Marketing

Five years ago I would not have believed this. The biggest names in CPG are quietly taking food out of the center of the plate. Unilever is carving out an $8B ice cream portfolio to focus on beauty and wellness. Nestlé is leaning harder into health science. The categories with pricing power are not pantry staples. They are skincare, supplements, functional hydration, and performance nutrition. Why the shift is rational, not trendy: Food margins are getting squeezed. Trade down is real, private label is sharper, and price elasticity in core staples is hitting its ceiling. Health and wellness carry willingness to pay. Consumers accept a premium for outcomes, routines, and performance. They do not reward cost plus in pasta sauce. Loyalty is drifting in food. Promotions move share week to week. Self care and efficacy-led categories hold repeat. You can already see where momentum lives. L'Oréal skincare growth outpaced many classic food portfolios last year. The Coca-Cola Company is pushing deeper into functional and non-carbonated. PepsiCo’s most defensible engine is Gatorade’s ecosystem of hydration, not soda. These are not side bets. They are where pricing power and repeat accrue. What I am advising leadership teams to do now: • Reweight the portfolio. Map pricing power, repeat, and trade down risk by category. If the math says wellness and self care carry the margin story, allocate accordingly. • Build credibility before you buy it. If you are a food-first house moving into health, you need scientific muscle, regulatory fluency, and communities that care. Partnerships, acqui-hires, and advisory benches matter. • Treat personalization as a revenue lever. Recommendations, routines, and subscription logic are table stakes in self care. Own the data and make it useful. • Keep the core honest. Food will not disappear, but it must earn its space with cleaner RGM, fewer zombie SKUs, and real reasons to stick around outside of price. I am not declaring the death of food. I am pointing at where the next decade of pricing power is likely to sit. The winners will rebalance now, not after a third year of elasticities telling the same story. If you are leading a CPG portfolio, are you future proofing around outcomes and routines, or are you managing a slow decline in categories that no longer set the pace? #FMCG #CPG #ConsumerTrends #GrowthStrategy #Beauty #Wellness #RevenueShift #BrandEvolution

Consumer Brand Marketing Leaders, Lately, I’ve had the chance to work with a different sector of companies: PE-backed, lower middle market, more B2B...and always growth-minded. And it’s brought a new lens and sharper focus to something I learned long ago: 👉 Brand isn’t window dressing or a style guide. It’s a Revenue lever. It drives conversion. It supports pricing. It builds loyalty. 𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝙞𝙩 𝙪𝙣𝙡𝙤𝙘𝙠𝙨 𝙜𝙧𝙤𝙬𝙩𝙝. In my time leading and expanding brands in CPG and PE-backed companies, we talked plenty about positioning and differentiation—but we also brought it down to earth.🌍 We nurtured our Brands as the 𝙘𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙙𝙧𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙨 💰 they are: ✅ Higher conversion rates ✅ Greater pricing power ✅ Stronger consumer stickiness ✅ Permission to stretch into new segments And to add some light industry validation: 📊 McKinsey: Strong brands retain customers 𝟯𝟬–𝟱𝟬% 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿 📊 Bain: Buyers pay 𝟭𝟬–𝟮𝟬% 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 when brand signals trust and reduced risk 📊 WARC/IPA: Brand-led strategies drive 𝘂𝗽 𝘁𝗼 𝟵𝟬% 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗥𝗢𝗜 over time For PE-backed or fast-growing businesses under pressure to deliver revenue now AND create long-term value, 𝘉𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘭, 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘺. These principles apply whether you're selling cereal, makeup brushes, or sealing equipment. What matters most is 𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙘𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙮 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙠 𝙗𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙨. I’ll be sharing more in the coming weeks...in the meantime, if you’ve had success connecting Brand to commercial performance—I’d love to hear about it! --- 💡 I’m Elizabeth, and I help CPG and PE-backed brands harness insight, positioning, and brand strategy to drive relevance and growth. Let’s connect if you’re thinking about brand stretch, the shifting consumer landscape, or how to turn strategy into impact.

For over a decade, I've worked alongside mid-market CPG brands ($50MM - $1B revenue), and the story is often the same: smart people, great products, but struggling to maintain profitable growth in the face of relentless pressure. Trade promotions that don't deliver and subsidize baseline sales, competitor price wars, and the constant battle for margin across the value chain. It's exhausting, and frankly, it's often unnecessary. This isn't about "tough market conditions." It's about having the right system for Pricing and Revenue Growth Management Analytics and processes. It's about moving from reactive firefighting to a proactive, insights-driven strategy built on a foundation of integrated/harmonized data and some essential predictive analytics/scenario analyses (no fancy AI). 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗜 𝘀𝗲𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗻: • 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗼 𝗥𝗢𝗜? 𝗔 𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗕𝗼𝘅. Many brands are flying blind, repeating promotions without knowing if they generate incremental profit. Retail buyers are often in the dark as well. We're talking about potentially wasting 10-20% of gross revenue on ineffective trade promotions. • 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿-𝗗𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗰. Reacting to every competitor's move leads to a race to the bottom. You need the proper Pricing RGM intelligence and scenario planning, not knee-jerk reactions. • 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝘁 𝗣𝗼𝗼𝗹 𝗠𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘆. Who's benefiting from your promotions? Are you subsidizing your distributors or retailers? The lack of transparency here is a significant margin leak. It doesn't have to be this way. Here's how to take back control: 1. 𝗧𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝘅𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗼 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀. Stop guessing. Implement a driver-based revenue and margin analysis to isolate the true impact of price, volume, mix, and competitive actions. Promo ROI capabilities enable you to reallocate spend to profitable promotions and strategically adjust pricing or product mix. 2. 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁, 𝗗𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗰𝘁. Near real-time price intelligence and scenario modeling are weapons against price wars. Model pricing impacts and make proactive decisions to protect your brand and bottom line. 3. 𝗠𝗮𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝘁 𝗣𝗼𝗼𝗹 𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗲. It reveals exactly where value is being captured—by you, your distributors, or the retailers. It also helps with renegotiating trade terms. 4. 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲, 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗩𝗼𝗹𝘂𝗺𝗲. Price-value mapping aligns your pricing with customer perception and willingness to pay. It's about reinforcing brand equity while maintaining profitability. Stop leaving your pricing to chance. I've created a 𝗖𝗣𝗚 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 & 𝗥𝗚𝗠 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗛𝘂𝗯 specifically for mid-market CPG brands. It's packed with practical guides, tools, and frameworks you can use immediately to address the above pain points. The link to access is in the comments.

The #1 question we get from FMCG CEOs: has the playbook changed? The answer is no. But the bar has risen dramatically.   What makes a high-performing FMCG company? Ten characteristics. An FMCG company is never as strong as the weakest of these ten links:   i) A low price-elasticity and faster growth category footprint — you cannot outperform from a structurally declining perimeter   ii) A faster growth country footprint — EMs account for >70% of FMCG growth over 2025-30. Under-indexing is under-performing   iii) Leading and/or highly differentiated brands — not more brands, better brands   iv) A replicable consumer-back approach to growth — driving incremental category growth through consumer-back brand plans, not top-down budget allocation   v) Excellent in-market execution — more value sits in execution than in portfolio and innovation combined   vi) A tailored approach to win in the most uncomfortable/strategic channels — ecommerce, digital, emerging markets require bespoke models   vii) High-ROCE M&A complementing organic intent — discipline, not deal volume   viii) A growth-enabling operating model — the operating model must serve growth, not bureaucracy   ix) Continuous cost-saving reinvested in growth — cost discipline funds brand investment   x) A winning culture with the best talent — ultimately, companies are people. The rest follows   The playbook has not changed. But two things have. First — you now need near-perfection across all ten dimensions. Excelling at two or three is no longer enough. Second — there is a growing premium for quality portfolio: a low price-elasticity footprint combined with either scale or highly differentiated brands. These are the two value drivers that have increased the most.   Use this as a diagnostic. Where is your weakest link? That is where your growth is leaking.   Exciting times #FMCG #CPG

It's not your imagination. The consumer's shopping cart is truly getting harder to win. Our latest Zappi study of 2,000 U.S. consumers shows what CPG brands are really up against: 📉 Brand loyalty is collapsing — private label share jumped 12 points in just months 💸 Price is now the #1 purchase driver (winning over taste and purpose) 🛒 93% of shoppers are cutting back, substituting, or going private label And one-in-five US consumers now uses a food bank. Let's all allow that to hit home for a second. This is the new reality. But most CPG brands are still playing by the old rules. They are not changing the way they operate and innovating fast enough. Meanwhile, investor pressure is mounting as profit margins keep declining. Here's what the data says to do: → Prove value to consumers in seconds, not paragraphs → Meet your shopper on their discovery channel, not yours → Rethink where you stand in a mixed-brand basket world → Use AI to make a major impact in one vital area: consumer insights AI isn't a future tool. It's the competitive lever available RIGHT NOW to help brands understand consumers faster, communicate value sharper, and compete smarter. The brands doing this are gaining ground. The ones sitting on their hands are losing shelf space. You don't have to take it from me, or from just Zappi data. In this report, we've included major findings, data, and key trends in CPG from McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Deloitte, Bain & Company, Infosys and many other leading firms. This report captures the most important mega-trends that every CPG leader needs to know about. If you work in CPG, I urge you to read this CPG Mega-Trends report, so you can take action for your business. ♻️ Share it with others. Or download it directly below and pass it on. 👇 #CPG #FMCG #ConsumerInsights #BrandStrategy #AI #Retail #GroceryIndustry #CPGLeaders

When CPG brands collaborate, performance is often evaluated through impressions, engagement, and short-term lift. But the most effective partnerships are the ones that ultimately drive routine and ritual. Scroll through Instagram and you’ll see plenty of collaborations engineered for attention. Co-branded giveaways and limited drops that intrigue for a moment but are easy to scroll past, delivering visibility without lasting behavioral change. Walking through Target, however, I noticed a different pattern. Several brands were collaborating in ways that reinforced routine while positioning the retailer as the matchmaker creating real consumer value. These weren’t typical end caps built purely for velocity or promotion. They were tightly constructed pairings organized around real-world behavior. It reveals a smarter way to think about joint marketing. 🛒 From Sale to Situation Most cross-merchandising is designed to move product. Place complementary items together and encourage incremental purchase. What Target is doing feels more intentional. It’s less about driving a sale and more about reinforcing a situation. Starbucks and Vital Proteins are framed around the morning ritual. Coffee becomes the anchor, and collagen integrates into something consumers already do every day. The messaging reinforces a habit rather than a discount. Brami and Sauz take a similar approach with pasta night. Sauce and protein pasta aren’t simply adjacent categories; they’re positioned as a complete dinner occasion. The display sells a protein-forward pasta night, not just two SKUs sharing space. In both cases, the partnership builds on existing behavior. It doesn’t require a new habit. It enhances a familiar one. That shift from product pairing to situation selling is where the leverage lives. 📍 Retail as Behavioral Media Many collaborations live online, where attention is fragmented and intent is low. In-store is different. Consumers are already in decision mode, assembling tomorrow morning or tonight’s dinner. The products are present. The convenience is immediate. The friction is minimal. These displays intercept behavior at the moment it’s formed. Retail becomes more than distribution. It functions as behavioral media. 📈 Why This Matters for Retailers and Brands For retailers, this approach increases basket size, improves velocities, and moves complementary categories together. The store becomes a curator of solutions rather than simply a place of transaction. For brands, the secondary product stops feeling optional and starts feeling embedded. When a product becomes part of a ritual, repeat behavior follows. The partnership shifts from borrowed audience to shared behavior. If you’re considering your next collaboration, the question may not be how to generate more attention, but how to reinforce a situation that already exists in consumers’ lives.

💡 How to Stop Burning CPG Dollars & Start Driving Sales Velocity Here’s something I wish someone told me 15 years ago: Press Visibility ≠ velocity. Social Buzz ≠ buy-in. When I was running my first beverage brand (JUST CHILL) as a newbie in my early 20s, we did what a lot of emerging brands do after their first big raise: → Sponsored celebrity parties → Paid for PR to chase press hits → Ran influencer campaigns with no tracking on grocery sales lift → Handed out cans on at events like they were confetti It looked cool. It felt exciting. It drained investor dollars — and didn’t move the needle at shelf. What actually worked? When we finally locked into our Whole Foods Portal data, we saw what was really driving results: → Optimal In-store promo pricing → Velocity from shelf-level execution → Strong ACV in high-priority markets (landing almost all key accounts + bodega density to build daily consumer habits via ubiquitousness) That insight led to the launch of Basemakers—and later, the acquisition of JUST CHILL in 2018 (mainly for investors as we ran out of $$$) Here’s what I wish I had done sooner: Optimize capital for measurable growth: 🛒 Support systemically important retailers first → Your most strategic retail partners should be allocated more % of budget. 📍 Build ACV before launching splashy campaigns → If you’re not saturated in your top markets, the awareness won’t convert. 📊 Put 80%+ of early marketing budget towards driving velocity at the point of purchase →retail execution →targeted demos →optimal trade spend & effective shopper marketing Only case against this is if you're DTC-first with tight attribution metrics. Capital-efficient bets that work: 1️⃣ Optimal Trade Marketing Promos that drive trial & visibility at key accounts 2️⃣ Retail execution that ensures availability, shelf presence with secondary placements, and planogram compliance 3️⃣ Targeted demos in the top 20% of stores where there is an asymmetric upside to the capital you invest in the demos do to traffic and velocity potential. It’s not flashy, but it’s a proven path to traction. Follow the DATA! Ultimately, the single greatest factor in your success (or decline) will be Product-Market Fit. Remember: “Build a product you can sell. Don’t just sell a product you can build.” 🚀 follow Max Baumann if you'd like more strategy breakdowns like this!

Dear Marketer, This year’s Economics Nobel went to Philippe Aghion, Peter Howitt, and Joel Mokyr - for proving that innovation, not efficiency, drives long-term growth. Their work shows that progress comes from “creative destruction” - when new ideas replace old ones and lift productivity. In my lived experience, That’s exactly how great CPG brands have survived decades ; they build innovation as a process into their operational cycles and focus on 5 things: ⸻ 1️⃣ Reinvent the Core Constantly Consumer problems largely stay the same - the way people solve them changes. Winning brands reformulate, repackage, and re-narrate before consumers drift. 🧩 They make renovation routine. Asking yearly: is our hero product still solving the problem the way people live now? ⸻ 2️⃣ Copy Fast, Adapt Faster Innovation often starts outside your lab. Smart brands spot what’s working elsewhere and scale it faster through their reach and muscle - or buy it via M&A. 🧩 They build a quarterly scanning habit. Adapting two-three good ideas better and faster than others. ⸻ 3️⃣ Delisting Quietly, Before It Hurts Zombie SKUs waste time and shelf space. Strong portfolios prune early and often, guided by data - not panic. 🧩 They Make delisting hygiene, not drama. ⸻ 4️⃣ Launching into Emerging Spaces Early Categories fade, but problems migrate. Health moves from calories to protein, cleaning from hygiene to sustainability. 🧩 They follow the problem, not the category. Enter one new space each year before the core slows. ⸻ 5️⃣ Focus on Vertical Innovation More variants ≠ more growth. New solutions - benefits, technologies, models - bring new buyers. 🧩 Ask: is this a variant or a solution? Variants keep you busy. Solutions keep you relevant. ⸻ The Real Trick? The Nobel economists showed that economies grow when creative destruction is built in - not saved for emergencies. The same goes for brands. Innovation needs to be an always-on process - with a dedicated team, resources, mindset, and the right incentives. It also needs visionary leadership that performs today and transforms for tomorrow.

Mondelez’s CEO just said something that should make every CPG marketer pause: “Promotional efforts generally are not yielding the returns on investment we've seen in previous cycles.” This comes from a company that pushed 8% pricing, yet still reported a 4.6% volume decline and a 40% drop in operating income in North America. When the world’s second-largest snack company can’t make promos pencil out, that’s not a Mondelez problem — that’s an industry turning point. Consumer behavior has fundamentally shifted: • Higher-income shoppers moving toward premium and better-for-you brands • Value-seeking shoppers migrating to discounters and club • Traditional mass channels losing relevance • Economic anxiety driving hesitation on discretionary purchases The winners in this new cycle won’t be the brands squeezing value through price increases or pack downsizing — they’ll be the ones finding new ways to reach consumers where promo fatigue doesn’t exist. Contextual sampling in premium environments isn’t “brand awareness.” It’s the new promotional ROI. #CPG #Merchandising #InstoreMarketing -- Check out how to increase visibility on the shelf: shelvian.com

✨ An inside view to "What's top of mind?" from our global #CPG customer executives. We start all of our customer advisory board meetings with this simple question. Insights from our Q4 meeting. 📍 Margin Pressure & Cost Volatility: Even as input costs, logistics, and supply chain disruptions (energy, raw materials, freight) remain volatile, consumers are still highly price-sensitive. Executives must figure out how to protect margins without sacrificing brand value or volume. Pressures on traditional Revenue Growth Management (RGM) to capture value in a price-sensitive era. Shifts in from volume to product mix / premiumization as a margin lever. 📍 Growth & Innovation / Portfolio Refresh: Growth via core SKUs is harder now. Execs are under pressure to refresh portfolios, incubate new brands or segments, or acquire to fill gaps. Many launching new products/services as a top priority – and will need to do it leaner, faster, and in tighter alignment with consumer signals. 📍 Demand Uncertainty & Consumer Sentiment: Consumer spending is increasingly tied to essential needs like utilities, health, household goods with discretionary categories more volatile. Execs are watching macro shifts, inflation trends, and consumer confidence to anticipate slack or spikes in demand. 📍 AI: Plenty of energy and enthusiasm for this topic! Most CG’s are pushing past analytics toward prescriptive, autonomous systems (agentic AI, continuous optimization). Most are just exploring Agentic – early days. Testing GenAI use cases. Potential to unlock margin improvement with AI. Trust, Privacy & Ethical AI: As brands lean more on data and algorithmic decision-making, CG’s must manage consumer trust, fairness, bias, and transparency. Strong consumer concern about data practices and algorithmic fairness (and dynamic pricing policies). 📍 Supply Chain Resilience: Most expect continued disruptions and need capabilities that are resilient despite the highs / lows. Dynamic sourcing, dual supply chains, real-time reallocation, and scenario planning. Some are re-engineering supply chains aggressively to counter inflation, trade risk, and disruption. Move toward modular, digital-native tech-enabled supply architectures. 📍 Omnichannel & Digital Shelf Dominance: With consumers bridging physical and digital seamlessly, CPG execs are pushing for tighter integration between e-commerce, retail media, DTC, and shelf dynamics. 👀 CG’s are rethinking how to win on the digital shelf, optimize content, syndicate across platforms, and be AI-optimized for retail search and discovery (especially as 64% of shoppers already use AI tools for product discovery). Hyper-personalization strategies being explored across consumer touchpoints. Amazon Amazon Web Services (AWS) AWS for Retail and Consumer Goods #CPG #Retail