The reflex reaction for most marketers would be to offer sales promotions. Carol has gone down this path before, only to experience a fleeting moment of volume joy. Without taking her eyes off margin, she wants to first diagnose where the decline is taking place, and why. Based on these findings, Carol will then set clear objectives and calculate the incremental financial value of achieving each. So how does she go about doing all this?

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Carol’s right hand person and brand management lead, Chen, believes that Kantar’s Blueprint for Brand Growth, has the answer. The paper starts with a truth bomb: If you have more equity than expected for your brand size (High Future Power), you are four times more likely to grow value share in the following year.

Future Power Has A Proven Link To Increased Sales Value

This is in stark contrast to the indicators of size, salience and past behavior that have been used as predictors of growth for the last ten years. Now, penetration is merely presented as an outcome and brand perceptions are put back at the heart of the marketing effort. So how can Carol and Chen secure the 1% penetration gain that they need for their brand? Using the Blueprint’s Growth Accelerators as a compass, they deep dive into their brand tracker and sales data for signals to set their objectives.

#1 PREDISPOSE MORE PEOPLE: The evidence proves that if people think quickly about your brand (salience) but also the right way (meaningfully different perceptions), then they command 5x higher penetration today and real advantage in penetration growth over the next two years.

Meaningfully Different Brands See 5x Higher Penetration

First, Carol and Chen work out which attribute would make their brand more meaningful and different in the mind of the consumer. Then, by how much they need to improve their attributes to increase brand revenues from $100M to $110M. This is a longer-term brand goal, but the team can still get halfway there by the end of the financial year.

They set their brand target: Increase perception that our brand ‘offers an appealing variety of flavors’ by 10% by 31 March.  

#2 BE MORE PRESENT: The evidence proves that brands that capitalize on their predisposition with active intentional presence, have a higher likelihood of getting picked.

This means that if you stand out (on the shelf or search listing) with your distinctive assets, you can better convert predisposed people to purchase. Carol and Chen inspect their Kantar Worldpanel shopper data and realize that penetration is down in every retailer, in line with loss of their SKU assortment. Alarmed by a potential distribution issue, they set out to optimize their trade efforts. They make plans for a ‘Pet week/ quarter’, aiming to reassure their retail partners and defend their brand’s physical space. This is a shorter-term goal. Longer term, the team’s ambition is to start selling in stores all four of their SKUs as more category buyers become better predisposed to the brand.

They set their defensive target: increase offer assortment in main store chains to include an organic SKU by 31 March.  

#3 FIND NEW SPACE: The evidence proves that a brand doubles its chance of growth when it finds new uses for its range.

A Brand’s Chance Of Growth Doubles If It Can Find New Uses For Its Range

Carol and Chen review their brand’s Demand Spread Score, only to find that it’s below average, meaning that they hit fewer demand moments than most of their competitors. They are aware of the emerging needs surfacing in the sector, that ‘treat or reward’ has become a new reason to be chosen. Rather than breaking boundaries, a brand of their size wins by breaking consumer habits, and so they devise a plan to do exactly that – steal purchases from competitors.

They set their consumption target: ‘treat or reward’ to become the brand’s additional demand moment, and Demand Spread Score to increase from 1.3 to 2 by 31 March.  

As Carol walks back into the boardroom, she feels apprehensive. Her team has been called a cost center in the past, so she needs to try harder (than any other department) to defend her budget. It’s nothing personal; only 22% of CFOs believe that their CMO demonstrates ‘excellent’ value to the business’ bottom line. And even the CMOs themselves (61% of them) admit that they find it challenging to communicate marketing’s impact on business outcomes.

But this time it will be different. Throughout her presentation, Carol stresses three key points:

1. The consumer is the origin of all financial values in the business – the marketing team knows them best.

2. The business decline is sharp – her actions will not only halt it but also recover past value lost.

3. Her marketing metrics are not some generic KPIs, they are utterly dependent on the business’s strategic objectives.

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The modern marketer is “part artist, part scientist, part champion for marketing with a business”, as marketer of the year and CMO at Boots, Pete Markey famously depicts them. For Carol though, science played an even bigger role when she created her two-speed marketing plan to gain 1% penetration and bring an extra $5M into the business.

As she walks out of the room, she has newfound confidence in her team’s financial fluency. Their marketing goals and the story behind setting them spoke the language of the boardroom and helped Carol secure more investment budget than she went in for. She proved her financial understanding, aligned her work to business goals, and strengthened her team’s alliance with C-suite. The marketing budget will not be as easy to get slashed during cost-cutting. Carol continues to monitor progress and activate her strategy, according to the data.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by Mary Kyriakidi, Global Thought Leader at Kantar

At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define and articulate what makes them competitive and valuable. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

Today most firms, institutions and individuals are grappling with 3 levels of relevance.

1. Does my firm have a relevant business model for the future?
2. Does my company have the relevant organizational structure, talent mix and suppliers/partners to succeed tomorrow?
3. Do we as leaders and practitioners have relevant skills and expertise to navigate the transformed world ?

Relevant Business Models

A case can be made that every company needs to interrogate its business model given the changes in technology, demographics and mindsets.

When a company finds itself in trouble it tends to be for two reasons:

Culture: A cultural breakdown due to some combination of a toxic environment, outmoded incentive models or inappropriate leadership. ( Boeing today, Wells-Fargo some time ago).

Competition: An existential crisis driven by a new different economic or distribution model that usually emerges from outside its category definition or usual competitors. (Tesla and Uber challenges to established auto-makers, linear networks challenged by streaming.)

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This culture and competitive soup is now being stirred robustly by AI, Block-chain and XR.

Today AI is driving the cost of knowledge to zero and changing the economics of everything from protein folding to content creation. It is also enabling individuals and small companies to gain scale and capabilities for a few hundred dollars a month that match those of many large companies in an increasing number of areas.

At the same time Blockchain is both creating new ledgers of trust but also allowing creators to own and watermark their work in a world where large tech companies have taken most of the profits and modern AI models are training on their IP.

Upcoming breakthroughs in XR (Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Spatial Computing) will change communication, creativity and collaboration dramatically within the next three years or less. (Apple Vision Pro is a threat to any TV manufacturer once its price declines in a few years.)

Smart companies and leaders are re-thinking their business model in various ways including:

a) Blank Sheet Approaches: Working with their internal teams and partners and consultants to reimagine their business if they were starting today. If they were to begin our company today to satisfy the needs of their customers how would they do it?

b) Attack Mode: If they were to bring their company to its knees as a next age competitor with no legacy constraints but just legal and scientific constraints what would they do?

World class talent and companies never get defeated. They defeat themselves by placing constraints that only exist in their mind or culture or current business models.

Relevant Structures And Systems

The future does not fit in the containers of the past. Most incentive plans are often optimized to deliver today rather than ensure tomorrow. In a high velocity and fluid world, partnering and openness rather than control and closed systems are likely to thrive.

Three approaches are often used to re-think structures and systems:

1. Multiple Models: World class companies and leaders run schizophrenic models that have teams focussed on today as well as having teams focussed on tomorrow. These teams often with completely different structures, incentive plans and timelines. While major talent is focussed on today, quite a few world class players in the company are allocated to tomorrow and incentivized to deliver tomorrow’s vs legacy metrics.

2. New Incentive Systems: Firms that have incentives, talent and power structures focused primarily on current delivery while claiming to be future forward should not be taken seriously. Incentive plans, talent allocation and organizational structure drive tomorrow and not strategy decks, flurries of press releases or the announcement of future 20xx task forces.

3. Wider Eco-systems: The best leaders have also begun to re-design the eco-system and architectures of their companies. Many have started to partner aggressively to quickly scale talent while ensuring flexibility looking across wider horizons to ensure both relevance and access to technology. (Microsoft has embraced Linux, partnered with Open AI and long ago dropped the Windows operating division.)

Are We Still Relevant?

Companies do not transform people do.

A company remains relevant if its people and leaders remain relevant.

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Today anyone who began work more than five years ago needs to find a way to both learn new capabilities but also unlearn some old habits.

This is particularly true for senior leaders with many decades of experience.

The way it was is not the way it is and definitely not the way it will be.

Change is coming much faster than we can hope to retire.

These changes are not just technological, but need to incorporate new mindsets of talent, different economic models and an expectation for leaders and companies to deal with political and social agendas whether they wish to or not.

The key to remaining relevant in the future is to upgrading our mental operating systems.

Leaders everywhere are embracing the new way through a combination of experimenting and using modern technology, hiring coaches, being reverse mentored, partnering with academia and schools and connecting with other leaders to share best practices on learning.

The best companies are also re-allocating dollars to training and learning and mandating up-skilling.

Twisting ourselves into new shapes takes time and practice and can hurt.

It is like going to the gym. Initially difficult and painful.

Some keys to remaining relevant followed by world class talent and leaders.

a) Learning: Leaders today allocate 5 to 10 hours a week to learn and they allocate at least a fifth of their time to think about and re-imagine their firms for tomorrow. If leaders only spend their time on today they realize that their company will not be taken to tomorrow. It is no longer enough to be up to date. One must ensure our teams and skills are up to tomorrow.

b) Monitoring: Leaders watch where top talent from schools are going or where VC and PE money is being driven.

c) Stepping out of comfort zones and category definitions: Tomorrow has already happened elsewhere.

“The future is already here – its just not very evenly distributed” William Gibson

Too many people go to the same industry conferences, which are often nothing but incestuous gatherings that generate still-born ideas. Best to leave the rote and familiar that feels like Ground Hog day and go to conferences or events of other industries or in other countries.

Regardless of what each of us do we need to address the 3 relevances regarding the future since our firms, our teams, and ourselves are going to spend the rest of our lives.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by Rishad Tobaccowala, Author of Restoring The Soul Of Business: Staying Human In The Age Of Data

At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define, redefine and articulate what makes them competitive and valuable.  Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

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The macroeconomic impact is a contraction of economic potential. For two centuries, demographic expansion has been the underpinning of economic growth in developed markets. Boiled down, GDP growth is growth in people times growth in output per person. Slower population growth slows GDP growth, as research confirms-generally, one-for-one.

The sobering correlate is that the offsetting boost needed in output, or productivity, is probably unattainable, Al advances.

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The microeconomic impact is a weaker foundation of brand growth. Based on ten years of global FMCG data, Kantor Worldpanel found that half of annual brand growth comes from household growth. But with fewer new people coming along each year, this demographic contribution to brand growth will be smaller than before.

It’s playing out already. McKinsey found slowing population growth to be a big reason why global FMCG CAGR dropped from nine percent from 2001 to 2012 to two percent from 2013 to 2019. In recent years, price increases have powered growth, masking the underlying demographic softness for unit volume.

Holding share should get easier, though. Broadly speaking, brands stay even by adding new buyers at the rate of population growth. With slowing population growth, fewer new buyers will be needed to hold share. But brands want growth not stagnation.

Growth Can Always Be Sourced From New Spaces

Kantar’s detailed assessment of 20,000+ brands for the Blueprint for Brand Growth finds that brands with a meaningfully different value proposition attract more buyers at a sizeable growth multiple, which can be accelerated by more predisposition, presence and new spaces. The best hedge against demographics is new spaces, but there are opportunities within current spaces from stronger predisposition and presence.

Every brand has upside in its category. The biggest brands worldwide have an average penetration of 29 percent, thus a lot of headroom. And even more for smaller brands.

But this means peeling away customers and purchases from competitors. Which takes improvements in customer experience, innovation, value and brand-building. Along with more impactful ways of reaching people, more meaningfully different offers, and more strategically driven pricing.

The flip side of decline is often growth. For example, a smaller population in total includes places that are thriving plus places lacking critical mass for resources and infrastructure, and thus an opportunity for automation and Al.

Older marriages mean more single households, which not only need products for singles but services for social connection and support. Older childbearing means more healthcare services for older mothers plus support services for busy, mid-career, often work-at-home older parents.

Smaller households mean a boom in the global housing stock. projected to grow 47 percent by 2040. Which will build demand for home furnishings, durable goods and all sorts of convenience, comfort and indulgence items.

The fertility rate for Africa as a whole, while declining, remains high enough that its population is projected to grow 2.5X by 2100. Most of this growth and over half of the world’s growth through 2050 will occur in sub-Saharan Africa, where GDP per capita is six percent of the U.S. and a bit more than one-fifth the global mean. Which is a lot of upside as these markets mature.

As emerging markets develop, eco-pressures will require new solutions. Slower growth in numbers will help climate, but greater affluence is likely to offset that. Prosperous lifestyles have a disproportionate impact. As poorer countries in Africa and elsewhere get richer, eco-pressures will grow, creating a market for climate-resistant foods, housing, entertainments, financial products and infrastructure.

Growth opportunities are hiding in plain sight. Brand growth can always be sourced from new spaces-applications, uses, occasions, target groups, geographies. For example, if the EU were to undertake policy changes to better support women in the workforce, declines in the labor force could be reduced if not reversed. Which would create corresponding opportunities.

Similarly, as rural areas that have lost the next generation are hollowing out, urban areas are growing, creating opportunities for brand growth.

Other sorts of trends will open new spaces as well, such as GLP-1 drugs for weight-loss, which entail new eating habits and food preferences.

Innovation will take more work. Economists worry that slowing population growth will squeeze innovation. Both from less demand for new products and from fewer inventors and entrepreneurs thinking up new ideas. It’s harder to reach critical mass relative to fixed costs with smaller populations. And the taxes and transfers to support retirees cut into discretionary income. The worst scenario would be a ‘secular stagnation’ trap rooted in weakened demand for investment and decaying infrastructure.

Other research finds that breakout ideas are costlier than ever. Innovation to sustain brand growth won’t come easy. But this challenge can be met. Even as population growth is slowing, an innovative era is unfolding now in Al, biotech, genomics, materials science, robotics, rockets, quantum computing, 3D printing, renewable energy, batteries, and more. It portends a future with plenty of growth opportunities for savvy, courageous brands.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider By Walker Smith, Chief Knowledge Officer, Brand & Marketing at Kantar

At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define and articulate what makes them competitive and valuable. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

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International brands can also benefit from economies of scale related to production, marketing and innovation, making their products more price competitive and profitable. To realize these efficiencies, international brands need ways of ensuring that brand positioning remains as consistent as possible in all countries so that new products and marketing activities can be shared. From an organizational point of view, a hub-and-spoke model can work well, such as illustrated here.

The central marketing function develops the global brand strategy and positioning, leads product innovation and produces brand development content, all shaped by feedback about consumer needs and preferences from the countries. Local teams decide which innovations to launch, choose from or adapt the centrally produced brand development content and develop their own activation content and media plans. This approach creates a lot of efficiency while providing enough flexibility for local teams to optimize the marketing mix for the culture, market context and media environment.

A common variation of this model involves having several lead countries that develop innovations and brand development for their country and other countries with similar needs. This means that development is led by teams that are closer to the end consumer and works well if countries fall into obvious groups, which may or may not be related to geography, each with distinct needs.

Regardless of the structure, international brands will be more successful if they have systems in place for countries to share local activation ideas and media plans that have been highly effective so they can be replicated elsewhere.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Dan White, author of The Soft Skills Book, The Smart Marketing Book and The Smart Branding Book

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As brands grow, they may enjoy efficiencies of scale or be able to leverage their growing consumer base. However, these benefits often reflect wishful thinking rather than sound business analysis.

If your brand is profitable, the Enhanced Ansoff Matrix (Johannesson 2009) illustrates the complex choices you’ll need to make when considering your next step for driving growth. The matrix highlights nine possible growth strategies. You could continue selling your existing product(s), introduce enhanced or modified version(s), or develop completely new products. You could also decide to focus on your current audience, expand to new markets, or target different types of consumers.

The personal care brand Dove was launched in 1957. During its early years, the brand focused on building penetration of its cleansing bar in a few key markets, targeting women (market penetration). The advertising explained that Dove’s cleansing bar contained moisturizer and was pH neutral, so it cared for the skin (unlike traditional soap). Over the next 38 years, Dove launched its cleansing bar in new markets across the world (market expansion). It wasn’t until 1995 that Dove started to launch products in other product areas, still targeting women (product development). This started with adjacent categories, such as shower gel and shampoo. In 2010, Dove launched Dove Men + Care. In 2017, it introduced Baby Dove. These new ranges mainly comprised modified versions of existing Dove products (partial diversification).

As of 2022, Dove sells more than 150 products and operates in more the 150 countries across the world. The brand has been successful because:

• It has built strong associations with skincare over time
• It launched new products and targeted new consumer types after establishing high levels of familiarity and trust
• Its products are consistently high quality and deliver against the brand’s skincare promise

Deciding which strategy is right for your brand is complicated. Whether to expand to new markets, for example, depends on the size of the opportunity compared to the investment required. The costs of transportation, retail distribution, advertising, and legal matters all need to be considered. You may need to produce modified versions of your product to succeed in new contexts. Even Coca-Cola varies its formula to reflect regional taste preferences.

Growth planning also requires an understanding of how consumers’ needs and priorities are likely to evolve. Google Trends allows brand managers to identify trends that will have an impact on category growth and the fortunes of their brand. For example, the cleaning product manufacturer Method identified an opportunity for a brand that is less harmful to the environment and looks great in the kitchen, based on consumer feedback.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Dan White, author of The Soft Skills Book, The Smart Marketing Book and The Smart Branding Book

The Blake Project helps organizations and brands in all stages of development create marketplace advantages. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

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