Is your strategy visible at shelf…? Over the last few weeks we have shared some of our thoughts on how to drive category growth.  We wanted to bring all this together into one simple question.  How visible is your category strategy at shelf? Most of you reading this will have some beautifully crafted documents outlining […]

Who are you competing against…? Despite a last gasp victory over Bayern Munich on Tuesday, for the third year out of four, Manchester City, the English Premier League Champions, are struggling to make it out of the group stage of the Champions League.  The football fans amongst you will know that they have had unusually […]

Are you aligning the usage occasion to the purchase occasion? One of the key principles of behaviour change is the easier you can make something to do, the more likely you are to do it.  In fact, the less you have to think about it, the better.  Want to make sure you go for a […]

Are you managing shopper time as well as you could be? How many categories are there in the average supermarket?  Perhaps 100?  And how many sub categories? Perhaps 500?  Most categories will have a few sub categories. Cereal has Kids, Family, Muesli, Porridge and Cereal Bars.  Fruit Juice has ambient, chilled and freshly squeezed. Most […]

Do you know who your best friend is…? There is lots of evidence that the easier it is to do something, the more likely you are to do it.  For instance, it is much easier to drive a new behaviour by attaching it to an existing behaviour.  Want to eat more fruit?  Chop some up […]

Developing a simple, transparent shopper contract… Last week we talked about the declining trust in the Big 4 UK grocers and contrasted that with the increasing trust in Discounters.  We think the Discounters have built trust by establishing a simple, transparent ‘contract’ with shoppers.  This contract says “in order to deliver the lowest prices in […]

The increasing importance of simplicity, consistency and transparency… We are taking a short break from our series of blogs on Category Development to share our latest view on what is happening in the UK grocery market.  The last couple of weeks have been full of announcements on value.   Rather than try to unpick all of […]

Is your Category Strategy specific enough…? How many commitments do you make?  And how many of them do you follow through on?  Half? A third?  Less than a third?  Life is full of good intentions that are rarely put into practice.  This is not because we are all bad people who go around breaking promises.  […]

Are you winning on your biggest strength…? How often do you think Carlo Ancelotti, the Real Madrid manager, comes into the dressing room after the game and says to Cristiano Ronaldo ‘another great hat trick, Cristiano, but you really need to work harder defensively’.  We suspect not very often.  Was Lionel Messi told as a […]

Why are they doing this and will it work…? Last week Sainsbury’s announced that they were moving to a medium low pricing strategy.  They have actually been moving this way for the last 18 months but they have waited until now to actively tell shoppers about it. This week they announced like for like sales […]