Why do companies in FMCG choose low probability growth?

In the big data era, why are most of the FMCG launches supply-driven instead of demand-driven?

Today’s guest is Todd Kirk, Principal and Managing Director at Middle Game Services. Kirk explains his background across client-side (e.g., Coca-Cola), retail data (IRI), and consulting, and says Middle Game focuses on performance marketing at the shelf—assortment, merchandising, pricing, and their overlaps, such as promotion—using a shopper-centric, “wide-angle view” of choices. He contrasts shifting existing tactics with “better things” like line-filling, imitation, and true innovation, and describes applying choice-based analytics to tracking data (e.g., Nielsen/IRI and e-commerce). Discussing a key growth problem, he argues that companies overload on low-probability innovations, starving the core “base” (a Jenga analogy), creating value-chain inefficiencies, and often generating transfer demand rather than incremental value, urging portfolio and retailer impacts to be modelled before launch.

00:00 Show Intro

01:01 Meet Todd and Middle Game

04:11 Shelf Choices and the Four Ps

11:26 Do Better Things Wide Angle Growth

20:15 Growth Problems and Closing

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