Growth, Brands and More

Is premiumness in RTD as important across demographic segments?

How should an Aldi Private Label compete with Guinness? And what would happen if GLP-1 were available in an oral format?

The second part of the discussion between Andy and Filiberto begins with how conjoint analysis reveals which packaging, price, size, and format cues consumers use in split-second FMCG decisions, highlighting ABV as a simplified signal of value, quality, strength, and flavour intensity, and warning that label “communication architecture” can unintentionally drive choice. It contrasts cans (mainstream, larger scale, often requiring partners) with glass (more premium, niche), and argues that innovation expectations should align with the chosen format’s scale. Research shows willingness to pay varies by demographic and market (e.g., French women and younger Spanish males paying premiums for glass), creating tension between segmentation opportunities and supply-chain de-complexification, while “shrink-to-grow” can open white space for smaller brands and even cross-category competitors.

Finally, Andy presents more insights from Epic’s previous research: 1) a UK study on Aldi’s Guinness-like stout found that alternative design choices (e.g., a glossy gold can and a distinct icon); 2) a separate study on oral GLP-1 formats

00:00 Conjoint Research Setup

01:42 Format Choices And Scale

04:40 Segmentation Versus Supply Chain

19:30 Packaging Signals And Copycats

28:49 GLP-1 Oral Disruption Wrap

Can we model consumer choices in a timely fashion?

Shouldn’t we test product-related design choices before launching them into the market?

The episode features Andy O’Brien, FMCG & RETAIL VP at Epic Insights, discussing his FMCG background and Epic’s software-driven, decision-based research, which delivers faster insights. They emphasise the need for rapid data to support innovation, challenge assumptions, and keep pace with retailer and internal decision timelines, noting procurement and organisational volatility as barriers and arguing that better tools should reduce high new-product failure rates. The conversation presents Epic-sponsored conjoint research on alcoholic RTDs in Germany, France, and Spain: product is the main choice driver, packaging is second, and their interaction shapes decisions, with price reinforcing expectations. Findings also suggest premium glass packaging complements rather than replaces mainstream cans, with cans driving volume while glass supports higher-value occasions and specific cohorts (e.g., female consumers in France).

00:00 Welcome and Preview

01:49 Meet Andy and Epic Insights

04:17 Fast Conjoint Research at Speed

08:22 RTD Study Insight One Drivers

20:05 Insight Two Packaging Premiumisation Wrap

Why do brands follow trends and waves, embracing change when it is not needed?

Why aren’t they obsessing about brand relevance, which is potentially the mother of all brand problems?

In this Growth Brands and More episode, Philippo interviews brand strategist Magda Adamska, who moved from agency planning (Nike, T-Mobile) to operator roles at MTV/Viacom and Pearson, then became a consultant and built Brand Struck, a database tracking 250 brand positioning analyses. Adamska contrasts the agency's focus on communication and creativity with client-side realities of the full marketing mix, citing Kinder Bueno’s repositioning, which tripled share. She describes shifts from fun/rebel branding to purpose and sustainability, and now “cultural relevance,” warning that fundamentals and measurement matter most. She argues relevance is the key driver of resilience (Uber, Instagram), while decline can stem from lost relevance (Bud Light) or bad business decisions despite relevance (Nike’s DTC shift). They discuss brands travelling internationally (Liquid Death in the UK), the importance of fame/awareness and investment, and why brand architecture projects start from portfolio messes driven by short-term incentives, acquisitions, and weak CEO stewardship.

00:00 Meet Magda Adamska

05:25 Brand Trends and Relevance

22:32 Brand Architecture Fixes

29:40 Short-Termism and Fake Innovation

32:43 CEO Stewardship and Brand Splits

40:45 Future Priorities and Value

Growth at any cost is still a mantra. But toxic growth creates more problems than it solves.

In part two of the chat with François Bazini, the host continues a conversation about “toxic growth” and why CMOs fail, arguing that marketers often chase glamorous, short-term levers, flavour “innovations,” promotions, ill-conceived category moves, or new consumer targets that look good on paper but poison brands, instead of doing the harder work of growing the core. François illustrates toxic growth through Ribena’s decline from a top UK brand in 2015 to outside the top 100 by 2022 after shifting away from families, launching non-credible flavoured water and sparkling RTDs, and becoming promotion-dependent. They discuss how companies mismanage brands, avoid postmortems, and misread success, citing Celsius’ growth as driven largely by a competitor’s delisting and a COVID-era shift to no-sugar. He also predicts that successful CMOs must both strengthen core brand growth and build disruptive new brands.

00:00 The types of Growth

00:43 Fake Innovation and Incentives

02:26 Defining Toxic Growth

06:33 Ribena Case Study Breakdown

26:46 Future of the CMO

From Chief Marketing Officer to Chief Growth Officer.

New Label or New Reality? What’s the future of marketing?

Filiberto interviews François Bazini, former CMO Europe at Suntory, about how the CMO role is changing and why some companies relabel it as a Chief Growth Officer. François recounts his global FMCG career (Danone, PepsiCo, Suntory) and contrasts functional marketing leadership with P&L general management, arguing that strong CMOs act as “brand CEOs” who own trade-offs across top line, bottom line, capital, and time horizons. He says CMOs often fail by avoiding ROI discussions or shifting spend to only what’s easily measurable, overemphasising short-term activation over long-term brand building. He also argues that CMOs must be brand stewards while improving ROI credibility by reframing returns around equity and pricing power, and advises marketers to build both “PowerPoint and Excel” skills and to speak the finance, supply chain, HR, and commercial languages.

00:00 Meet François Bazini

02:42 From CMO to P&L Leader

06:00 Brand CEO Mindset

10:56 ROI Trap and Brand Stewardship

23:08 Chief Growth Officer: The Future

Nicotine Products are not a smoking cessation category anymore.The Blurring Boundaries of Nicotine. And that changes everything.

Nicotine pouches show this shift clearly.

They look less like medicine and more like mints.

Consumers prefer formats that don’t make them feel like patients.

In this episode, Filiberto interviews Joel Rubenstein, an LBS alumnus and consumer health veteran, about his career in consumer health and the evolution of nicotine products. Rubenstein explains why tobacco companies are moving into cessation/harm reduction: nicotine is both the addictive problem and the cessation ingredient, it is hazardous to manufacture, and cigarette sales are declining. He contrasts highly regulated pharmaceutical players with rapidly innovating non-pharma products (vapes, gums, strips, and especially nicotine pouches), predicting recreational products will outcompete pharma’s. He stresses policymakers often wrongly equate tobacco with nicotine, notes inconsistent regulation (e.g., marijuana legalisation vs pouch bans), and warns unethical marketing, teen targeting, and ultra-strong pouches could trigger backlash, arguing for stronger retailer/supply-chain accountability and self-policing.

Why are so many FMCGs so focused on cannibalising their own demand?

Why is volume growth not really at the centre of the way they operate?

Todd and Filiberto discuss how innovation can create incremental demand rather than just redistribute it by targeting unmet occasions and clarifying each product’s role in the portfolio across four buckets: entry (trial), frequency, upsizing, and upscaling. They argue portfolio pruning often lacks discipline because firms fear losing shelf space and cut based on past sales rather than on incremental value, creating future competitive gaps; research cited claims that incremental value stops around the fourth SKU. They critique promotions for often subsidising existing buyers and driving unprofitable spikes, and warn that innovation and siloed decisions break pricing ladders (e.g., multipacks priced higher than singles). The proposed fix is a shopper-centric, system-wide “wide-angle” mindset that uses existing data and tools, along with virtual testing, to align assortment, pricing, and promotions.

00:00 Innovation That Creates Demand

01:14 Four Portfolio Roles Explained

03:47 Real-World Examples By Bucket

07:50 Pruning SKUs And Promo Myths

19:03 Pricing Architecture And Systems Mindset

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

Why do some executives keep growing and others plateau?

How do you balance the short-term objectives with the long-term plan?

In this podcast episode, host Filiberto interviews Rafal Walendzik about his 30+ year career across FMCG/CPG, food and beverages, and spirits, spanning Unilever, Kraft Heinz, and roles in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Southeast Asia, leading multicultural teams. Rafal says continued growth depends more on mindset than title, emphasising learning through failure, leaving the comfort zone, and taking calculated risks rather than plateauing. He explains that leading across markets and company sizes requires co-creating a strategy with teams, understanding what motivates people and owners, and focusing limited resources in smaller firms while staying agile as conditions change. Rafal connects cycling to goal-setting, self-talk, and the rewarding experience of progress.

00:00 Podcast Welcome and Guest Intro

02:58 Career Growth Mindset and Risk

14:34 Leading Change Focus and Motivation

29:47 Building the Next Chapter

33:04 Influence Without Authority

45:00 Three Questions to Move Forward

The Beverage industry is undergoing a global, structural reset.

And here I will explain why.

Podcast host Filiberto discusses a structural “reset” in beverages, especially beer and spirits, as the aggressive pricing playbook used to offset inflation has hit consumer limits and investors now prioritise volume growth. He traces how industry messaging shifted from post-pandemic cyclical softness to normalisation and transition, citing inventory overhang and weaker consumption, including pressures even in stronger categories like tequila. Spirits players such as Diageo and Pernod Ricard are adapting portfolio and operating models, while beer leaders like AB InBev and Heineken emphasise operating leverage, productivity, digital B2B platforms, and cost resets, alongside investment in no/low alcohol and beyond-beer offerings that still don’t fully offset traditional volume declines. He highlights category boundary blurring, diversification by bottlers and brewers, affordability ceilings, geopolitical supply-chain risk, and GLP-1 impacts, and outlines 2026 mandates: prioritise volume, shed complexity, localise smarter, stay consumer-close, and build better distribution systems.

00:00 Podcast Welcome

01:02 Beverage Reset Begins

04:26 From Cyclical to Structural

16:31 Total Beverage Playbook

21:13 2026 Mandate and Wrap