The Fast-Changing, But Fickle, Competition in Consumer Packaged Goods

Digital has made a whole new kind of business model possible — and incumbents are reeling.

Born-Digital Companies Are Going Direct

They’re new, they’re nimble, and they’re communicating with your customers right under your nose, causing decades-long assumptions about retail success to become obsolete.

It Used to Require Lots of Access and Huge Marketing Budgets — No More

FMCG. CPG. The very fact that acronyms exist for companies that sell en masse to consumers through retailers shows how deeply their business models have become taken for granted. For the curious, the alphabet soup stands for Fast-Moving-Consumer-Goods and Consumer Packaged Goods companies, terms often used interchangeably.

These companies — familiar names such as Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Nestle, and so on — own brands, manufacture products, and sell those through retailers. While their supply chains and manufacturing operations are complex, their business models are fairly similar — do research, make stuff, charge more if it is differentiated, invest in big brands, and work closely with retail partners. Underpinning it all is the requirement to capture share of consumer mind with…