Marketing & SalesObservation 0032 min read
−8.2%
The cheapest acquisition is not automatically the best acquisition.
Optimizing for cost per acquisition finds the customers who are cheapest to reach, not the ones worth reaching.
Food & Beverage
Food and beverage growth is won on frequency, mix and the shelf.
Market context
Market context
Food and beverage businesses depend on purchase frequency, price-pack architecture, retail and foodservice distribution, and promotion. Small changes in price or mix move large volumes and margins.
Commercial pressures
- 01Retailer promotions funded from the brand's margin.
- 02Input costs that pricing cannot fully pass through.
- 03Portfolio complexity growing faster than profitable volume.
Customer economics questions
The questions leadership should be able to answer.
Q1
Which price-pack combinations create contribution, not just volume?
Q2
What do trade promotions return after funding?
Q3
Which products and channels deserve focus, and which should be rationalized?
Relevant capabilities
Where the work usually starts.
- 03Revenue & PricingImprove revenue quality and capture more of the value being created.Explore capability
Transaction · Contribution
- 02Commercial StrategyConnect growth, economics and strategic priorities into one commercial system.Explore capability
The full chain
- 04Marketing & SalesConnect acquisition and selling activity to actual customer economics.Explore capability
Demand · Customer · Transaction
Illustrative commercial problem
Illustrative · Not a client example
Volume up, margin down, on promotion
Illustrative pattern. A beverage brand's volume grows on retailer promotions. Once trade spend is allocated, promoted volume contributes less than baseline, and baseline sales fall as shoppers wait for the next deal.
Also in Consumer & Retail
Intelligence
Related thinking.
Marketing & SalesObservation 0052 min read
$0.90
A 4.0 ROAS that returns ninety cents.
Attribution asks who touched the sale. Incrementality asks who would not have bought otherwise. The difference can be most of the return.
PricingObservation 0062 min read
+75%
The discount that needs 75% more units.
Break-even volume on a promotion is almost always higher than the discount itself. At 30% off and a 70% margin, it is 75%.
A TCB engagement
10–15
Business days
Customer Economics Sprint
One commercial diagnosis and a clear 90-day path forward: the constraint identified, the economics diagnosed, the opportunity benchmarked and the intervention prioritized.
Bring the constraint.We'll give it direction.
Start with the commercial problem you're trying to solve. We'll identify the constraint, diagnose the economics, and determine whether there is a useful next step.
- 01Identify the constraint
- 02Diagnose the economics
- 03Recommend the right intervention
- 04Define the next move