Christa Bundt, MBA

Occasion based marketing for beverages is not a new phenominum. We just have to go back over the catalogue of historic Coca Cola ads to see how leveraging occasions has been used for decades to drive increased sales and margins for all members of the Coca Cola value chain.  “Refreshment on the Go”, “Stock Up for the holidays”, “makes food taste better”, “easy hospitality”, “Refreshing vacations” are just of few of Coca Cola’s occasion based propositions. It’s been the Coca Cola way for generations, and the basic principles from yesteryear, are still applied today. In fact, for the Coca Cola system, Occasions sit at the heart of their marketing DNA. They call it the OBPPC (Occasion, Brand, Pack, Price, Channel) process and it’s a critical element of their overall marketing. Coca Cola ensures that for each occasion, they clearly define the optimal brands to be sold, in the most appropriate packages, at the right prices, in the target channels to sell more products, at higher prices. They use occasions to pro-actively change the market dynamics in their favour by shifting the demand curve for beverages rather than simply moving along it to where the market takes them. DM me to learn more about how you can use Growth Scope to unlock your liquor market growth agenda by unlocking consumption occasions.

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Meanwhile in CPG news... Kroger and Albertsons announced the agreement to combine in October 2022 amounting to over 4,000 stores, which would have been one of the biggest US grocery deals in history. Today, both retailers issued statements that will end the over 2-year saga. Albertsons terminated the merger and filed a lawsuit against Kroger for several breaches of the agreement including: refusing to divest necessary assets, ignoring regulators’ feedback, and rejecting stronger divestiture buyers. Kroger issued a response suggesting Albertsons had also breached the contract. #cpg #merger #food #retail #retailers

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We're officially soccer moms 💁🏻‍♀️ Here's what you can expect with our new official partnership with the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL): 1. Lactation and feeding room support across the League 🤱 2. Sharing the stories and feeding journeys of the moms on the field 🍼 3. A Bobbie Box for our Bobbie subs to catch some NWSL games! ⚽️ 4. Our name in lights along the field ✨ 5. Formula donations and giveaways throughout the League! ♥️ When women own companies we get to invest in the women also changing the world--- the female-owned League and athletes showing our little girls how to rewrite the playbook and that yes, women's sports are worth investing in.

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As nonalcoholic beer gains momentum, Athletic Brewing is leading the charge with innovative marketing strategies! 🌟 Check out this article where CMO Andrew Katz explains how a new multimillion-dollar campaign is part of the brand’s efforts as the “big guys” enter the nonalcoholic beer category. https://ow.ly/3NoO50UBrTB #NonAlcoholicBeer #MarketingTrends #InsideAthleticBrewing #SoberCurious 🍻💪

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Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. has named Drew Panayiotou as its new #CMO for U.S. refreshment beverages, overseeing a $9 billion portfolio, including brands like Dr. Pepper, Snapple Group. and Canada Dr. Drew brings deep expertise in #AI-driven marketing and #ecommerce from his time at Pfizer. His appointment underscores the growing need for enterprise-wide #data standards—ensuring consistency across brand taxonomies, proactively removing bad data, unlocking actionable insights and enabling seamless collaboration. These foundations empower marketers to deliver precise, #innovative campaigns that drive results. #datastandards #datagovernance #contentsupplychain #bigdata #CPG #digitalmarketing #Claravine

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Modernizing legacy brands for a new generation of consumers is no easy feat. Earlier in my career, I was fortunate to work on teams that accomplished that for two legacy Kraft Heinz brands: Jell-O and Crystal Light. Critical to those successes were the same lessons Gail Hollander discusses in this article: * how to successfully update a brand by understanding its role in the culture and category without walking too far away from the brand truth and its DNA * creating winning marketing strategies by leveraging the art (creative thinking) and the science (data-driven decisions); and * breaking down silos to align the entire organization around long-term brand building I took these lessons I learned and recently wrote an article about how integral they also are for building successful CX strategies: https://lnkd.in/ecPhFpMz

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I noticed cottage cheese gained distribution in my local Costco region - a real sign it's found its way worthy of space in a limited SKU environment! Once seen as outdated, cottage cheese category is +15% driven by an updated positioning as a high-protein superfood. (I eat it daily!) Key takeaways for CPG marketers: 1️⃣ Follow the trends. Cottage cheese brand managers saw a real opportunity to jump on the clean-label, high-protein wagon. 2️⃣ Make it exciting. A fresh story and good packaging can turn “meh” into “must-have.” (Kudos to the Good Culture team!) 3️⃣ Mix nostalgia with new. People love a throwback - but make it trendy with fresh packaging and relevant innovation.

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General Mills and Tyson Foods are advancing #digital transformation through strategic collaboration and system modernization. Cleaner #data is crucial for better consumer #insights and campaign performance, as highlighted by Jeffrey Meisel of Constellation Brands. Ashton Dollins emphasizes marketing's role in collecting data to justify #technology investments, reinforcing the #CPG giant's digital progress. #datastandards #dataquality #contentsupplychain #innovation #bigdata #mmm #digitaladvertising #Claravine https://lnkd.in/eiDA5x2U

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Brands are undergoing refreshes to ‘get consumers excited again’. According to Andrew K. Smith, managing partner of Savory Fund, such efforts can generate a 10% to 20% sales lift if they’re done right http://ow.ly/PIfO105QLk1

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Community Call: Whole Foods Market - Updates for Local and Emerging Brands Kristin Sherman, Principal Local Forager at Whole Foods Market, and Casey Gaston, Executive Leader of Local and Emerging Brands, join Community Call to share essential updates and strategies for local and emerging brands who want to get their products on shelf including: *Changes to how the local and emerging team operates *Current differentiation and innovation the team is looking for *Inside tips for submissions and pitching *Distribution recommendations *Pricing strategies *Special diets and macro trends of note

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The 3 most important ingredients to a successful campaign: 1️⃣ A problem. 2️⃣ An insight. 3️⃣ An idea. Here's why I think our team has cooked up something special! ⚡️ Our Problem → In a highly competitive #QSR environment, operators need to drive *NEW* traffic. But how and with who? Our Insight → The US is home to nearly 70MM Gen Zs, who hold ~$450B of disposable income, a lack of brand loyalty, a love for food experiences, a dependency on social media, and a growing trust in influencers – with more than half saying they have bought something based on an influencer’s recommendation. Our Idea → Instead of using influencers to recommend new products or restaurants, why not partner with them much earlier in the process to tap their highly engaged Gen Z audiences for unfiltered access into their flavor wants + needs, and then work with them directly to bring it all to menus - FAST. Flavor development at the speed of social... This is the NEXT Flavor Network 🟧

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"Great Brands, Sufficient Resources, Yet Underwhelming Results? --------------------------------------- You've got a renowned brand, ample resources, and a solid strategy in place. Still, your planned results remain elusive. It's time to investigate the root cause. Often, the missing link is not the resources or the plan, but the people. Specifically, the lack of ownership and engagement among team members. When management fails to create a culture of: - Active listening - Open communication - Empowerment - Trust Team members become disenchanted, losing faith in sharing their concerns, ideas, and feedback. This leads to: - Disengagement - Lack of accountability - Inefficiency - Stagnation To revive your brand's performance, focus on reigniting your team's passion and ownership. Encourage open dialogue, recognize individual contributions, and foster a sense of belonging. Remember, a brand's true strength lies not in its resources, but in its people. #Observation #Listening #Leadership #TeamEngagement #Ownership #Communication #BrandPerformance" #CEO #COO #MD #FMCG #Beverages #CMD #Fairfeedback

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Working in marketing turns all of us into accidental anthropologists. For the last 6 months I've gotten a bit addicted to studying #GenZ and the impact they're having on our industry, and more specifically, the food industry. The proliferation of food influencers is just one byproduct of this fascinating generation and who better to spill my guts to on that topic than Elizabeth Green + Food Ingredients First!? tysm 🧡↓ #foodindustry #influencermarketing #marketing

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#Surfside update from the annual Beer Marketer's Insights conference last week... 🏄‍♂️ 🚀 2025 is going to be wild for Stateside Brands...chains are all in! Surfside Aims High; More Than Tripling in 2024 to Near 5 Mil Cases; 25 Mil Down Road? Some years back there “was a pent-up demand for a different kind of beverage,” noted Surfside ceo Clem Pappas at Beer Insights Seminar. White Claw “was able to fill that” on malt side, but spirits based RTDs didn’t “have a track record of success at scale.” Gallo “was able to figure out” how to do this and now “floodgates are kind of open,” he added. Surfside figured tea, lemonade “should have a premium offering with a vodka base.” Timing is “key” as is “right branding, right liquid,” etc. It’s working out pretty well so far. Surfside went national rapidly in 2024 (49 states), as “we didn’t figure the opportunity would last too long. We went as fast as we could.” And co went mostly with beer distributors, which Clem called “a significant advantage in plenty of markets.” Other than its largest distrib, NJ wine and spirits distrib Fedway (“pretty much a unicorn”), Surfside frequently found spirits distribs “weren’t set up” to sell Surfside, “didn’t like the profit and volume” and it was “like pulling teeth with some of our partners.” On other hand, “when we went into beer [networks] it was plug & play.” About half of Surfside’s biz is in NJ and PA. Fedway alone is over 25% of volume. Elsewhere, its distribution network “tilts slightly towards” MC network. For example, it’s “almost totally aligned with Reyes.” But it does have some AB distribs. Surfside only launched in NY last Jun and will do about 700K cases in state, said Clem, with “a goal of more than doubling that next year.” NYC area alone close to a half mil cases, INSIGHTS hears. Surfside already has 9 or 10 states where it’s selling over 100K cases.  Co originally expected to hit 4 mil cases, up from 1.3 mil cases in 2024, its 3d yr. Instead, Surfside “on pace to finish” at 4.7-4.8 mil cases and “5 is still on the table” for 2024, said Clem. Next yr, Surfside expects to “launch more at scale” and it expects to double again. By 2027 (yr 6), it aims to sell 25 mil cases, basically following same trajectory as High Noon thru its first 6 yrs, he showed. “There’s a ton of runway,” Clem added, noting that Surfside only at 33% category weighted distribution. Compare to High Noon at 88% or Cutwater at 77%. There’s “quite a bit of opportunity to expand distribution,” according to Clem. Its velocity is 30% ahead of High Noon too, he showed, citing NIQ data. Meanwhile, about 30% of Surfside biz is on-premise so far and only 10% in chain. Those are some striking stats.

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Portillo's last earnings call reported despite a challenging Q1, they're winning with strategic price increases: -Targeted menu price hikes (3% in Q2) offset inflation without hurting sales and no other pricing increases are planned. However, it was notable they said nothing about strategic decreases. -Higher-margin salads like the Spicy Chicken Chopped option are a hit. -Value bundles like the Famous Five are back to tempt budget-conscious diners. They're also laser-focused on efficiency: -Drive-thru speed improvements aim to recapture pre-pandemic levels. -Smaller store formats and kiosk testing streamline operations. Portillo's shows how strategic pricing and operational tweaks can navigate a tricky market. For the March 31-ended quarter, revenues were up 6.3% to $165.8 million. Net income was $5.3 million, compared to a net loss of $1.3 million for the first quarter last year. Need help with your pricing strategy? Visit JUICER and talk to the experts. Read Restaurant Business Online full article here: https://lnkd.in/gbJQgf-u #restaurantmarketing #pricingstrategy

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For the first time in three years, CPG sales volumes have grown, noted Sally Lyons Wyatt, global EVP & chief advisor of consumer goods and foodservice insights at Circana. This is big news for the food and beverage industry because it indicates growth irrespective of inflation, the historical growth driver of retail gains. On the foodservice side, however, traffic fell by 1.6% during Q3 – although welcome news for retail, which battles the channel for food dollars, it’s a signal of an overall trend of consumers shifting there out-of-home spend to in-home as the industry embarks on the new year. #groceryindustry Sally Lyons Wyatt George Alexander Hajjar Mike KostyoCircana

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Weather triggers are just one example of how prOOH brings flexibility to the channel. Not only is this a great way for brands to reduce wastage and increase efficiency but for that very reason it 'demoractises' the channel, opening it up to smaller 'digital only' advertisers who might have not thought about leveraging OOH as part of their mix. In the words of one advertiser 'it's not just about when to advertise, triggers can tell us when not too'! The crew at Vistar Media 🇬🇧 are always on hand to talk about how we've been able to do that for our brand and agency partners. 🚀 #prooh #programmatic

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Enjoyed a great webinar last week on the Non-Alcoholic beverage category, hosted by the Adult Non-Alcoholic Beverage Association (ANBA) and presented NielsenIQ. The #NA boom is more than a fad - it's here to stay! With over half of Americans drinking less and a third abstaining entirely, the opportunity is undeniable. The data is clear 👇 , and the industry's rate of innovation and growth confirms it. Fueled by a health-conscious consumer base, the adult #nonalcohol category is poised for continued expansion. What an exciting area for #beverage #innovation!

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