Benjamin Thompson

Corona Sunbrew buyers are 60% incremental to Corona, with two-thirds of them new to the brand. As reported at a Barclays conference, Corona Sunbrew Citrus Cerveza is the number one new SKU in the Constellation Brands beer business. Not bad for a new product in a test market 12 months ago. Congratulations to the massive team involved in this success. Even test market results exceeded projections by 45%, with 86% Gen Z repurchase intent. This triggered accelerated national expansion in May 2025.  When you launch a line extension, you’re always balancing new users with cannibalization.  Why spend the money if you're just taking it from yourself?  The strategic opportunity wasn't to compete for existing flavored beer drinkers, but to create an entirely new entry point into Corona. The packaging design and brand world needed to signal "this is radically different" in under 5 seconds while maintaining Corona's premium cool positioning. The design needed to solve three critical tensions: First, it needed to capture Gen Z's appetite for bold flavors without abandoning Corona's refreshing simplicity. Second, it needed to express contemporary Latin culture through design language that felt both fresh and rooted in heritage. Third, it needed to achieve instant shelf disruption while maintaining unmistakable Corona recognition. Our solution at Beardwood&Co. leveraged Mexican street art, a visual language that bridges traditional craft with modern expression, to telegraph real citrus flavor and cultural authenticity. This design system had to work harder than typical line extensions: creating a new category, attracting new consumers, and establishing Corona's credibility in flavor innovation while respecting its 100-year legacy. We amplify brand possibilities to drive growth in the real world. #brandingagency #brandingresults #growth #innovation 

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Retail isn’t just about selling anymore. It’s about building audiences. The best brands aren’t waiting for customers to find them. They’re creating worlds people want to be part of. You can see it across the UK. Selfridges acts more like a culture magazine than a department store, blending exhibitions, collaborations, and storytelling. John Lewis & Partners and Marks and Spencer have become seasonal broadcasters, their Christmas campaigns are national events, not adverts. Gymshark built its entire community by thinking like a media brand, putting storytelling before sales. Burberry continues to blur fashion, art, and film, creating campaigns that feel more like cinema than marketing. This is where retail is heading, from transactions to storytelling. From marketing to media. Because attention is now the most valuable currency in business. And customers don’t just buy products. They follow stories, people, and purpose. For retailers, that means thinking differently. The store becomes a stage. The product becomes a prop. The customer becomes the co-creator. The question isn’t “What do we sell?” It’s “What do we stand for, and how do we tell it?” The future of retail belongs to brands that behave like media companies, with creativity, consistency, and courage. #RetailTransformation #BrandStrategy #MarketingInnovation #Storytelling #CustomerExperience #RetailLeadership #FutureOfRetail

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Lords Builders Merchants has acquired the trade and assets of CMO Group, the UK’s largest online-only retailer of construction products following a CMO pre-pack administration process. The Acquisition brings together Lords’ infrastructure and merchanting expertise with CMO’s digital-first online model and reflects Lords’ continued focus on growth, diversification, and digital innovation in the construction materials distribution sector. Another good example of the Epocolypse hitting pure play retailers, trapped between ever increasing Google spend and the higher costs of rapid last mile delivery. When your margins are already slim, this gives you nowhere to go. More here on Insight DIY - https://lnkd.in/exeBTKdD #retailnews #trade #buildersmerchant #acquisition

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You can’t have eyes on every shopfloor, fixture and promotional display across your entire estate. That’s where Shepper comes in. We place real consumers in front of your fixtures and deliver what matters most - real-world availability data and imagery, in real time. Giving teams immediate visibility - directly in the hands of those who can take action - is where insight becomes impact. On-shelf availability (OSA) remains one of the highest-ROI levers in retail - yet still one of the least governed. So how do you fix it? 1️⃣ Quantify the problem Identify where availability is breaking down - by region, store type or category - and understand the true commercial scale. 2️⃣ Move to real-time visibility Replace lagging reports with live data that reflects what shoppers are seeing right now. 3️�� Evidence the issue on-site Time-stamped, geo-tagged images remove debate and enable fast, confident decision-making. 4️⃣ Put insight into the hands of those accountable Prioritise heavily promoted, high-value and seasonal SKUs where availability delivers the biggest return. Fixing OSA doesn’t require more complexity - it requires clarity, speed and accountability. 👀 Want visibility of real in-store imagery captured by Shepper over the past few days? Drop me a message to see how your stores are performing. Tesco | Asda | Morrisons | Sainsbury's | Iceland Foods | Aldi UK | Lidl GB | Co-op | Waitrose & Partners #OnShelfAvailability #OSA #RetailExecution #InStoreExperience #RetailInsights #RetailMedia #AvailabilityMatters #Shepper

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Retail Media is the "new creative playground"!!!!! What a great way to say "SPEND MORE" This is a great article from The Drum. I read it with a sceptical mind though. Retailers want more brand spend within their media ecosystems. Calling retail media a "creative playground" is a pitch to entice manufacturers to spend more on brand, on upper funnel, on storytelling and not just on performance. To gain bigger budgets from manufacturers retail networks have to move beyond just sponsored search and banner ads into "full-funnel reach", where awareness and consideration execution brings more brand investment and less need for commercial 'performance'. "Closed-loop" data is interesting, but the retailers/networks are still marking their own homework, making comparison to other media channels impossible or extraneous. Calling for "Creative Innovation" is a way of saying "if your ad didn't work its because it was engaging enough (your fault), not because the channels are ineffective (our fault)....spend more." Let's not forget: Retailers are making a VERY high margin from digital retail media. The retailer's goal is to grow THEIR margin, not yours. Retailers have created a system whereby if you don't invest your competitors will. While some media is effective (e.g. sponsored search), most manufacturers do not know which channels their target audience is most receptive too (but they buy media anyway). Retail media is a tax on sales unless YOU manage it. Where it works, use it. Where is doesn't, don't. What to do... 1. Treat retail media like any other trade investment. Demand proof of sales/share/customer delivery, not just reach or clicks. 2. Tie budgets to performance, not promises. Don't expand budgets into upper-funnel media until you can prove the effectiveness of on-site channels. 3. Prioritise YOUR profit, not theirs. You are in business to make money for the manufacturer you work for, not the retailer. Demonstrate media performance and focus activation on the channels your target audience is most receptive to. 4. Challenge all costs. Rate cards, production, data, trade spend etc. 5. Align internally. You can't hope to maximise the external opportunity until you have solved the internal challenges. Build cross-functional execution teams, with a clear owner, roles, responsibilites and deliverables. Plan, Execution, Review, Improve. 6. Stop treating ROAS as the only measure of success, it is too easily manipulated. Look at ACOS, Rolling Average ACOS, TACOS, NTB, CAC and others, depending on your media objective. https://lnkd.in/eEpD-wrz This is a great article from The Drum. I read it with a sceptical mind though. #digitalcommerce #ecommerce #cpg #retailmedia #digitalretailmedia

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Great to discuss fibre with Chloé Meley and Emily Forgash Bloomberg for their recent piece, which highlights a trend we’re seeing clearly at Tate & Lyle: interest in fibre is growing, and it is becoming a mainstream global nutrition priority.   Historically, interest in fibre was concentrated in nutrition-focused products for health, and in mainstream products mainly focused on sugar reduction. Over the past 12 months, across the globe and especially in Asia Pacific, that has shifted decisively. Fibre is now being designed into products people consume every day - children’s juices, popcorn, sparkling beverages, pizza crusts, yogurts, biscuits and more, with health as the driver.     We, for example, recently supported a customer in formulating a healthier fruit yogurt snack where our soluble corn fibre enabled an on‑pack fibre claim. So, instead of simply reducing sugar and replacing it with fibre, we’re now supporting brands launch lower‑sugar products that hero fibre.    Fibre has long been a core strength for us, and momentum continues to build. Our global soluble fibre expertise and formulation capabilities make us an ideal partner as fibre becomes a key driver of better‑for‑you innovation - helping make healthy food tastier and tasty food healthier.   Have a read of the Bloomberg article: https://lnkd.in/eHYZRpSf   #Fibre #Nutrition #FoodInnovation #TateAndLyle #CEO

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#tesco continuing to dominate market sales growth, and #lidl yet again growing at double the rate of #aldi, are the headlines from Worldpanel by Numerator (formerly Kantar) UK market data for 12 weeks ending 7th September 2025 released this morning. 12-week sales grew by 4.7%, slightly up from 4.5% in the last period. In the last 4 weeks grocery inflation was 4.9%, a touch down from 5.0% the previous 4 weeks. The Tesco juggernaut continues to roll over the performance of most of the other retailers. Their sales are up £716m YoY, accounting for 45% of total market growth. This 7.7% increase is their highest rate of increase since December 2023. Their formula does not change – a laser focus on #promotions (through Clubcard prices), #EDLP (using Aldi Price Match), and strong #availability in-store has not waivered – putting them in a great position ahead of the “golden quarter” of supermarket retailing. #sainsburys have been growing ahead of the market every period since July 2023. Their 5.4% growth is strong, but they will be aware that Tesco have moved further ahead of them in terms of market share - by 0.7% pts compared to this time last year. #asda continue to struggle with sales down 2.7% vs. 2024 and market share down 2.0% compared to just two years’ ago. They have recently completed the roll-out of their new IT system “Project Future” following a 4-year deployment period that has significantly affected availability – maybe damaging customer confidence to the point of no return. Only time will tell. Confidence (and energy) seems to be higher at #morrisons. Whilst sales and share remain a challenge they have this week announced price cuts of more than 650 products and are launching over 500 new products with a huge focus on fresh food. Looking forward to seeing these in their stores that are being re-merchandised to show off the new ranges. Lidl, at +11.0%, are the fastest growing physical retailer yet again. Their growth rate has been over double that of Aldi’s for the last 2 periods. This week Aldi’s 2024 full year performance was announced – sales up by just 1.1% at £18.1bn with operating profit down 21% to £435m. This was against a strong 2023, and 2025 sales are improved. However, their 4.7% sales growth indicates flat volume growth, as Aldi have launched around 40 new stores over the last year, an increase of c.4%. They have plans to launch 1500 stores in the UK - but at around 40 per year it will be 2035 before this target is reached. #ownlabel sales now account for 51.2% of the market, up from 50.9% this time last year. They are growing at a rate of 5.9% whilst #brands are up 5.3%. #premium own label has been in double-digit growth for the past 6 months. Morrisons this week have announced a new “ultra-premium tier” called “The Best Signature Collection”. Certainly the focus of many retailers is to use premium private label to #differentiate from their #competitors and the brands – painting a rosy future for own label growth.

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UK Total retail sales up 1.1% in five weeks 2 March – 5 April 2025.... v growth of 3.5% in March 2024 Despite a challenging global geopolitical landscape, the small increase in both food and non-food sales masked signs of underlying strengthening of demand given March 2025’s comparison with last year’s early Easter. The improving weather made for a particularly strong final week, with gardening and DIY equipment flying off the shelves. Jewellery and beauty products were helped by Mother’s Day, though sales of bigger ticket items like furniture remained weak. Retailers are making final preparations for Easter, with food expected to be the big winner next month. Since the start of April, retailers have had to contend with £5 billion pounds of new government-imposed costs as a result of increases to the National Living Wage and National Insurance. This rises to £7bn when the new packaging tax comes into effect in October and will undoubtedly increase inflation later in the year and hold back critical investment in high streets across the country. Government has ample opportunities to kick start that investment by ensuring that no shop pays more as part of their planned reforms to business rates and that the Employment Rights Bill doesn’t reduce the availability of entry level and part time jobs. Investment and growth are what the economy needs right now. #buyintoretail Read more here 👇👇👇👇

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