WILL 2024 BE THE YEAR OF THE CONSUMER?

By Tom Buckley

Last year brought us case study examples of poor marketing strategy and execution. For example, the marketing program and follow-up around Bud Light resulted in a nearly immediate decline of 25% in year-over-year sales and the brand’s loss of market share leadership in the U.S.

This year ushers in new ideas against the backdrop of global inflation and the new dictionary term “shrinkflation,” whereby manufacturers obtain price increases by shrinking product size or reducing the amount of ingredients. For example, less chocolate in a candy bar or less cream in a cookie.

Retailers win in the minds of the consumers by pushing back on both. While we’ve seen examples last year in comments made by Walmart’s Chief Executive Officer, it didn’t quite resonate as Carrefour’s recent messaging by publicly protesting manufacturer price increases and removing products from store shelves in France, Italy, Spain, and Belgium. In this case, the retailer leverages up the price dispute while positioning a marketing win in the minds of the customer.

While the world has changed in the past three years, it seems to some we might be slowly returning to normal, where increases in sales are driven primarily by quantity gains and less on price increases, and marketing messages are simple, direct, and not at all too clever.