Today&#x27;s grocery aisle is splitting between shoppers looking for the best deal and those who are happy to pay more for brands they believe are worth it. In this episode, Scott Sanders, Business Intelligence Lead at Carbone, and Jeff Lovering, Chief Data Scientist at Customer Marketing Group, talk through what that shift means for CPG brands. They share practical ways to think about pricing, promotions, and growth—and how to figure out whether your biggest opportunity is pricing, awareness, positioning, distribution, or something else entirely. You&#x27;ll learn: How to determine whether your brand has earned a premium price The difference between a pricing problem, an awareness problem, and a positioning problem Why premium brands can thrive—even in a value-driven economy How consumers decide whether your product is &quot;worth it&quot; When promotions drive growth—and when they simply mask bigger issues How to use data to diagnose what&#x27;s really limiting your growth What today&#x27;s split economy means for your long-term brand strategy

This Economy Is Splitting the Aisle. Here's the Pricing Model to Win Either Side.

Nombase Podcast

Hello, and thank you for joining. I am Melissa Travers, Director of Community here at BevNET and Nosh, and I am excited to welcome you to the Nombase Podcast, a podcast built to help CPG owners and operators navigate growth challenges and grow more profitable businesses. Be sure to check out Nombase.com, BevNET's platform made for the CPG community, where you can find this episode and so much more.

Today, we are talking about a question most brands will face in their lifetime, and that's when sales are down, what should you do? One answer that's often considered is to lower the price, but in today's market, especially for premium brands, that can be the wrong move. If the real issue is awareness, positioning, or something else, discounting may not solve the problem, and it might actually make things worse.

Inflation and the current economy are affecting the way consumers shop, but it's not affecting everyone in the same way. Some shoppers are increasingly constrained and looking for ways to stretch every dollar. Others are still willing to pay more for products that feel meaningfully better, more convenient, more enjoyable, or more connected to how they want to eat and live. That split is creating a market where value brands and premium brands can both win while the middle gets harder to defend.

To figure out exactly what that means for brand strategy, I am joined by Scott Sanders of Carbone and Jeff Levering of Consumer Marketing Group. Scott brings the operator perspective from a premium brand with a clear value proposition, and Jeff brings deep expertise in pricing, trade spend, promotion strategy, and consumer segmentation. Well, Scott and Jeff, thank you so much for joining me today.

This Economy Is Splitting the Aisle. Here's the Pricing Model to Win Either Side.

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.

This Economy Is Splitting the Aisle. Here's the Pricing Model to Win Either Side.

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast, not the earnings call.

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.