Consumer Products Marketing
Consumer brands compete on shelf, on screen, and on price at the same time, against competitors who are doing the same thing with more budget.
I've worked both ends of that. Global manufacturers where a brand decision moves through six approval layers, and direct-to-consumer companies where the founder makes the call on a Tuesday and it ships Thursday. The constraints are opposite. The underlying question is the same: why would someone choose this instead of the thing next to it.
What makes consumer different
Attention is the scarce resource, not information. Your buyer isn't researching. They're scrolling, or standing in an aisle, or comparing three tabs. You get a fraction of a second to be recognizable and a few more to be interesting.
And the brand has to work at two speeds. There's the long-term equity that makes people trust the name, and the short-term performance that has to hit this quarter. Most consumer marketing sacrifices one to feed the other, then wonders why the brand feels thinner every year.
The talent problem is real too. Consumer manufacturers compete for people against tech and retail, and a strong consumer brand doesn't automatically make a strong employer brand. They need building separately.
How I work in this space
I find the specific reason to choose you, not the category-generic one. Most consumer positioning describes the category and hopes the logo does the differentiating.
Then I build the brand and the performance layers so they feed each other. What you say in a campaign should make the next campaign cheaper, not start from zero.
And I scale the approach to the company. A global manufacturer needs governance and consistency across markets. A DTC brand needs speed and a clear point of view. Bringing enterprise process to a five-person company kills it, and bringing startup improvisation to Kimberly-Clark doesn't survive the first review.
Where I've done this
Global consumer brands. Kimberly-Clark, spanning employer brand and consumer brand work for the healthcare product line.
Employer brand. Sargento.
Retail and supply. Test Rite Products Group, where I ran consumer product marketing in-house across a global retail supply group.
Direct-to-consumer and e-commerce. Catch Buddy, a portable single-player pass-catching trainer, and iVibeKicks, a sneakers and streetwear brand built on on-demand production.
Who This Is For
Brand and marketing leaders at consumer manufacturers, retail suppliers, and direct-to-consumer companies. Usually someone trying to hold long-term brand equity and this quarter's numbers at the same time, without letting either one hollow out the other.
We are small and competing against big budgets. Where do we start?
With the specific reason to choose you rather than the category-generic one. Most consumer positioning describes the category and hopes the logo does the differentiating. Being the recognizable answer to a narrow question beats being a smaller version of a bigger brand.
How do you balance brand building against this quarter's numbers?
By building them so they feed each other. What you say in a campaign should make the next campaign cheaper rather than starting from zero. Most consumer marketing sacrifices one for the other, then wonders why the brand feels thinner every year.
Do you work with DTC brands or only large manufacturers?
Both, and the approach scales to the company. A global manufacturer needs governance and consistency across markets. A direct-to-consumer brand needs speed and a clear point of view. Bringing enterprise process to a five-person company kills it.
