Greg Rose

Labels are fading. Experiences are taking center stage. Today’s consumers aren’t just buying products; they are buying experiences. The Coca-Cola Company is testing label-free Sprite bottles to make recycling simpler, according to Javier Meza. No label, no distraction, just a direct, sensory interaction with the product. This is experiential marketing in action, where the experience is baked into the product itself. When labels disappear, design and experience become the real brand storytellers. The future belongs to brands that can create meaningful experiences at every touchpoint.

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"The number one thing you need with any distributor partnership is for someone at that distributor to be in love with your brand, whether it's a one-man band or a thousand-person organization." Elwyn Gladstone of Biggar & Leith kindly shared this gem and more on the latest episode of Business of Drinks. Gladstone is a seasoned industry vet, having worked at William Grant & Sons and Pernod Ricard before building Malfy Gin (which was sold to Pernod Ricard in 2019). His latest venture, Shanky's Whip, is now selling 100,000 cases annually across 60+ countries with a team of less than 6 people. Three key insights from our discussion: 1. Your idea and packaging must be exceptional - good is not enough. Someone needs to be able to spot it and identify it from across the room. "New brands have to have a major point of difference... Their kind of differentiation freaks people out." 2. A small, passionate team can outperform large organizations. "I think you need really smart people, and you need people that love the brand, and you need to be highly organized and create systems that allow you to do it that way." 3. Don't waste time trying to fix markets that aren't working - go where the momentum is. 👉 For more, listen now: Link in comments #BusinessOfDrinks #SpiritsIndustry #BrandBuilding #DrinksBusiness #RTD #Whiskey #Gin #AlcoholMarketing #BeverageStartups Caroline Lamb Erica Duecy

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Private label sellers keep the Featured Offer (FO) by default. Resellers compete for it. Shared listings increase pressure. Small shifts in price, delivery speed, seller feedback quality, or Negative Customer Experience (NCX) change the rotation. This post focuses on resellers. Without the Featured Offer, Sponsored Products stop delivering. Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Brands Video, and Sponsored Display still show, but they send traffic to a PDP controlled by another seller. Your organic ranking also weakens because Sponsored Products drive most keyword stability. What the Featured Offer decides: -> who appears in the Add to Cart and Buy Now boxes. -> who earns conversions, who gets ad traffic, and who drops out of rotation. Resellers share listings, but Amazon selects one offer to lead. Why the Featured Offer shifts: 🔶 A small price gap Imagine two sellers list the same espresso machine. One is $299 FBM with a four-day delivery. The other is $303 FBA with next-day shipping and stronger seller quality. Amazon gives the Featured Offer to the safer offer, not always the lowest price one. 🔶 Out of stock streaks You go OOS for two days. Even after restocking, rotation stays low because Amazon prioritizes stability. 🔶 Slow fulfillment Your delivery estimate jumps from two days to three. Amazon shifts the Featured Offer to the faster offer. 🔶 PDP impact through conversion, not direct Buy Box logic Outdated images or unclear variants lower conversion. Lower conversion reduces visibility and makes your Featured Offer less stable. 🔶 Negative customer experience signals NCX rises from 1.3 to 2.4. Amazon reduces visibility to protect shoppers. How resellers increase their chances: 🔶 Stay within a competitive price band Rotations often fall within a narrow range. A difference of fifty cents is enough to shift the leader. 🔶 Protect availability Forecast demand and avoid gaps. Short interruptions lower the FO share longer than expected. 🔶 Strengthen shipping accuracy Fast delivery improves trust. Delays have a larger impact on resellers because shoppers compare offers on the same page. 🔶Strengthen seller feedback and account performance Same two sellers. The lower-priced one has weak feedback and high cancellations. The other has strong feedback and a solid delivery record. Amazon prefers the more reliable seller. 🔶 Monitor customer experience signals Track NCX, return reasons, and response times. Small improvements here create visible stability in the FO. A quick evaluation to run today: -> Is your Featured Offer share above 70%? -> Is your price aligned with the top offers? -> Is your availability stable? -> What does your seller feedback show? -> Is your delivery estimate competitive? Winning the Featured Offer comes from consistency. Price, stock, delivery, and customer signals all matter. Where does your Featured Offer rotation break most often? #ad #sponsoredads #amazonbuybox #featuredoffer #resellers

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Two common scenarios: 1) You're a CPG. You have 50+ RMNs chasing you for commitments. Or 2) You're an RMN, competing with 50+ others, many of whom are much larger than you. How do you allocate as a brand? How do you compete as a mid-size retailer? Angela Myers gives fantastic advice. https://lnkd.in/gCjggFd4

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For agencies that consider themselves "specialists": every quick win outside your niche slows the compounding of your expertise. A couple examples from our Barrel Holdings agencies: Barrel has been steadily sharpening its edge in CPG commerce selectively taking food & beverage clients with omni-channel needs & stacking relevant case studies; and BX Studio has continued to go deeper into Webflow, helping launch several client sites each month while uncovering new integrations & edge cases. Choosing those lanes was easy. Staying in them when a warm, slightly off-track lead arrives is the real test. When we do veer, the true cost rarely shows up on the P&L: - Three to nine months of team effort spent solving problems that don’t deepen our mastery - Case studies that never make the portfolio because they don’t fit our story - Lost momentum while a more disciplined specialist agency widens the gap Maybe you end up pivoting and new opportunities open up because you didn't "limit" yourself. This is the story generalists embrace and it works out well for some and backfires for others. There's nothing wrong with doing many things for many types of clients, the full-service industry-agnostic path has plenty of success stories. But to waffle midway between specializing and being generalist is a dangerous place to be. Our record isn’t spotless. We’ve chased “adjacent” projects that later felt like detours. The takeaway isn’t to never deviate. It’s to weigh every opportunity against the long-term compounding of expertise you mean to build. Before saying yes to the next appealing yet not-our-ICP/specialization opportunity, ask yourself: Will this deepen the capability our future clients will prize, or is it just short-term revenue dressed up as growth? == 🟢 Join 1,300+ other agency leaders and get insights delivered weekly at AgencyHabits. No generic fluff, just real lessons learned from running our Barrel Holdings agencies.

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📈 Levi Strauss stock just popped 7%... and the signal is loud and clear: Being DTC-first doesn’t mean ditching marketplaces. This week, Levi’s posted stellar Q2 results. Margins up. DTC growing double digits. And yes, marketplaces still pulling weight. 🧵 Some highlights from the Levi’s Q2 update: 🛍️ DTC now drives 50% of total revenue, up 11% YoY 💻 E-commerce alone rose 13%, showing strong traction on Levi.com 🧾 Gross margin hit 62.6%, up 140 basis points despite tariffs 📦 Wholesale grew 3%, with CFO spotlighting digital channels (yes, that’s code for Amazon & Zalando) 🇪🇺 EU wholesale up 23%, thanks to platforms like About You, Zalando, and Next 🧠 Inventory rationalised, with low-turn SKUs pulled back to protect margins across all channels And the cherry on top? Despite Trump’s 30% China tariff blitz, Levi’s raised its full-year outlook. Why? Because their hybrid model is working. 💡 It’s not about choosing between DTC and marketplaces. It’s about getting both to drive profitable growth. Levi’s just showed the industry how it’s done. #ecommerce #dtc #marketplaces #retailstrategy #levis #amazon #zalando #channelstrategy #digitalshelf #channelmojo #fashionbusiness #supplychain #omnichannel #growthstrategy #primeday #marketplacestrategy #retailinsights #dtcbrands #q2results

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After Back to Nature Foods in-person brand launch event in LA, Sircle Media wanted to bring that excitement to their broader audience – especially their email subscribers who couldn’t attend in person. Guests at the event received custom beach towels (perfectly reflecting their new California vibes ☀️🌊), and when our client found themselves with a few extras, we started brainstorming on how to use them in a meaningful way. Instead of defaulting to a typical giveaway format, we saw an opportunity to reward our most loyal audience: email subscribers. We kept it simple: a recap email with a fun CTA button that triggered a segment based on clicks. Anyone who clicked was automatically entered. No forms, landing pages, or friction – just a surprise-and-delight moment baked right into the inbox. Here’s why this matters: Back to Nature isn’t a DTC brand, so they don’t run the frequent online promos that typically keep email lists warm. But what they do have? A loyal email audience that genuinely cares about the brand. That’s why surprises like this (email-only perks and insider moments) go a long way. The email channel is where brand love lives, and it’s a brand's job to keep that audience engaged, appreciated, and excited to stay subscribed. 👉 If you’re curious how your brand can tap into email to build stronger connections and surprise your audience in meaningful ways, we’d love to chat. ☎️ #cpg #socialmediaagency #emailmarketing

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DTC is no longer optional for alcohol brands...especially during OND! Distributors and retailers are backed up and focused on volume, not discovery. If you’re relying on them to push your brand during the busiest quarter of the year, you’re already behind. Direct-to-consumer changes that. It gives you control over how your story is told, who you sell to, and how fast money hits your account. It also builds something distributors never will: CONNECTION Every order gives you data. Every email builds a relationship. Every repeat buyer becomes an advocate. A few reasons DTC is so critical right now: • Cash flow is faster. No waiting months for payment. • Margins are higher. You keep more of every sale. • Marketing is smarter. You see what customers respond to in real time. • Flexibility is instant. You can launch a holiday bundle tomorrow. OND is when new customers are looking to discover brands. It’s also when existing customers want to feel connected to the ones they already love. If you don’t own that channel, someone else will own your customer. If this is something you're struggling with, it's not too late to capture the holiday frenzy! Shoot me a message and let's see what we can do for you.

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Most DTC brands think they’re ready for retail. They’re not. Here’s the reality: They don’t have the revenue to fund a retail launch. They can’t drive a single shopper to shelf. Their ops team isn’t built for retail timelines or volumes. They don’t understand how the channel actually works. Their pricing falls apart once slotting fees and margins hit. And they’ve never set foot in a category review. Miss any one of these and your product won’t just stall - it’ll get discontinued, fast. The next wave of winning brands won’t be built online first. They’ll be built in retail - from day one. 📷 DTC brand Blueland crushing it in retail execution at Erewhon

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CHURCH & DWIGHT DISCLOSES TOUCHLAND, THERABREATH & HERO REVENUES During their analyst day today Church & Dwight Co., Inc. disclosed revenue figures for touchland, TheraBreath, and Hero Cosmetics. The growth is epic! - Hero was acquired for 630M at 5.5x sales and 14x ebitda in 2022 - Touchland at an even higher multiple of 6.8x sales and 16x ebitda last year. - TheraBreath HIGHER at $580M at 6.7x sales and 21.5x ebitda in 2021 Using the multiples from the deals, all three brands are worth over a billion: - Touchland at 1.2B representing a 1.4x valuation step up in <1 year - Therabreath at at 2.7B, 4x valuation in 4 years - Hero at 1.9B, 3x valuation in < 3 years

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Meeting with Costco Wholesale or Sam's Club buyers? Here’s what you need to know first. These aren’t your typical grocery retailers. They’re membership-based clubs where customers shop in bulk. Here’s what makes them different 👇 🔹 Bigger Pack Sizes - products are sold in multi-packs or larger formats. 🔹 Value-Driven - members expect savings, so margins work differently than conventional retail. 🔹 Operational Demands - high volume and strict consistency in supply chain. 🔹 Customer Behavior - loyal shoppers who stock up for weeks at a time. So, should you try to land your product there? ✅ Yes, if your product can be bundled or sized for value. ✅ Yes, if your supply chain can support pallet sized orders per store. ✅ Yes, if your cashflow won’t crash with net 60 payment terms. ⚠️ Wholesale retailers are typically “capstone accounts”… they are really big, high-volume stores you usually pitch to AFTER you’ve proven yourself with other small/medium retail partners. In other words, you don’t start with them. You build toward them.

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Lower priced vendors are going to cost you in the long run. I see it every week: brands juggling five vendors for T-shirts, three for hats, another guy for wristbands. It looks more affordable on paper, until you add up the real costs: Your staff wasting hours tracking down orders. Logistical nightmares when stock runs out or shipments get delayed. Frustrated franchisees stuck with inconsistent quality. The dollars you “save” upfront leak out ten times over in lost time, missed opportunities, and brand damage. But when you invest in one partner and one portal, you also invest in peace of mind.

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In a recent episode of the Think Millions podcast, I had the chance to sit down with Ashley Rogers, founder of Spudsy and a powerhouse in the CPG space. Ashley didn’t hold back when we talked about why so many small CPG brands struggle to scale especially when entering big box retailers. From lack of education to the complexity of supply chains, she laid out the real reasons so many founders hit roadblocks early on. That’s exactly why she created her latest venture, Shelf Made. It’s built to help founders navigate the challenges she once faced herself, empowering them with the tools and knowledge to succeed in a fiercely competitive space. If you’re building a product-based brand or planning to break into retail, this is the insight you didn’t know you needed. Follow @dralexadagostino for more conversations with the brightest minds in business and watch the full episode at thinkmillions.com or hit the link in bio. #ShelfMade #AshleyRogers #CPGFounder #RetailStrategy #ThinkMillionsPodcast #ProductBasedBusiness #FemaleEntrepreneur #BrandGrowth #RetailSuccess #BusinessMentorship #EntrepreneurInsights

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If I were a VP of Sales for a CPG brand with slowing sales, here’s how I’d fix it: I wouldn’t waste time on broad, traditional advertising that reaches people who may never buy. Instead, I’d double down on retail media. Because retail media targets shoppers already in the market. They’re at the retailer. They’re considering a purchase. They’re primed to convert. Traditional ads cast a wide net. Retail media hits the bullseye. And now, with tariffs threatening to eat into margins, precision matters more than ever. You can’t afford to spray dollars and hope something sticks. That’s why retail media is the smartest play for CPG brands looking to turn sales around. -- Retail media is complex. But it doesn't have to be. Our team has built strategies for brands that actually deliver results. 🔗 Get in touch with me here: https://lnkd.in/gM-dgj7K

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Kroger Centralizes Retail Media Under 84.51° to Boost Advertiser Value Kroger is consolidating its retail media and data science units to unlock more value for advertisers. The company announced that Kroger Precision Marketing (KPM) will now operate entirely under its 84.51° data science division, bringing media and analytics together under one roof. What’s changing 🔸KPM, previously a standalone entity, is now fully integrated into 84.51° 🔸The move is meant to improve how advertisers access targeting, measurement, and campaign insights 🔸This consolidation aims to strengthen closed-loop performance visibility, a key selling point in retail media 🔸Kroger plans to increase investment in AI-driven audience segmentation and predictive analytics Why this matters for brands 🔹Retail media is getting more sophisticated Brands will benefit from deeper insights, more accurate targeting, and cleaner attribution when advertising on Kroger platforms 🔹Data and ad strategy are no longer separate This integration sets a standard for other retailers to follow as media networks mature and advertiser expectations rise 🔹More pressure on smaller marketplaces As giants like Kroger improve their retail media stack, emerging platforms will need to match targeting precision and measurement capabilities to stay competitive The takeaway: Retail media is moving from test and learn to scaled performance. Kroger’s play to fuse media and data into a single operation signals where the market is heading. For brands, this means better tools, clearer results, and a growing expectation to allocate more budget into retailer ecosystems that offer measurable return. ⬇️ Tap the link to read more about this update! https://lnkd.in/dQsA5s5Q

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Most DTC brands never make it into retail. Not because their product sucks. Not because they don’t work hard. But because they treat retail like it’s just another DTC channel. It’s not. Retail is its own beast with new rules, new expectations, new buyers. If you don’t have: • Sell-through data • Retail-ready packaging • And a founder-led pitch that makes buyers care… You’ll get ignored. This is the same framework we use with brands doing $1M–$30M in DTC, helping them unlock big-box and specialty retail.

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