I've studied emerging symbolism in premium, early-stage brands for a long time. And "organic" is not a meaningful symbol in beverages outside of fluid milk. This is because 'organic' requires a broadly disseminated consumer fear of impurities in a beverage's supply chain to have any
When early-stage businesses struggle in the premium end of consumer-packaged goods, a shocking number of founders and operators leap to the conclusion that they need a “brand refresh” or a “re-brand.” Look, branding agencies are numerous, and they network heavily at Expo West. They sponsor
Put simply; it's about the nature of averages. Even today, the problem is always in chain store systems with huge, store-level variations in demand for premium brands. A consumer brand’s sales in any chain will vary in U/S/W based simply on variations in-store traffic. But chain
I get this asked about this a lot because most early-stage startups are in Phase one, like ~80% of them. Where do I start when ‘big’ premium chains like Whole Foods totally ignore me? Looking ahead to next year, here’s where I stand (which you should
I’m pretty harsh about various stakeholders you’ll encounter on this blog and my podcast. Suppose you re-read or re-listen to my commentary, though. In that case, you’ll notice that all I do is point out patterns of behavior that work against an undercapitalized CPG business and
On Monday, I gave a high-level POV on why paternalistic leadership works great for conservative, slow-growth companies where little is changing inside and outside, mostly outside. Of course, this is NOT what we’ve experienced in the past three years in CPG. This is not really
You might think paternalistic work cultures are only a problem for aging Baby Boomer-owned family businesses. Wrong. Paternalistic operating cultures have nothing to do with the owner's age (or gender). There is probably a bit of an age-skew, but you’ll find young punks running paternalistic
I wrote a whitepaper years ago about how using innovation to grow just doesn’t work. I want to refine my case here. It’s a problem that affects platform brands built around an attribute that easily crosses categories and the grocery store itself. Often, I’ve seen this
In January, 43 million student loan borrowers will have to make payments again after a two-year pause. This is hundreds of dollars per month in additional expenses. Covid payments have already ended. Inflation in retail CPG items is a permanent lift of ~10%. With or without
Deep in my book - Ramping Your Brand - I have a long, somewhat torturous chapter on how to diagnose your brand’s early-stage performance. This is for Phase 2+ brands primarily. However, the main point I make is that Product is the number one source of