CPG disruption playbook: Insights from emerging brands

The CPG market is currently valued at approximately $2.3 trillion with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) exceeding 4%. It's predicted to reach $2.8 to $3.4 trillion by 2030-2034. 

Around 30,000 new CPG brands hit the market each year. And while 85% close up shop in their first two years, many emerging brands are seeing success. 

Emerging CPG brands in 2025 aren’t just gaining traction—they’re reshaping category norms with agility, speed to market, high digital fluency and deep consumer empathy. 

These brands are quickly winning over consumers, and their share of the market, with innovative products, consumer closeness and agile insights; making sure their brand, product and marketing are deeply attuned to their target consumer. 

For existing CPG brands, there’s much to learn from these challenger brands. In this post, I will take a look at the top CPG brands in 2025, why they’re winning and how you can stay ahead. 

Let’s take a look at the biggest emerging CPG brands in 2025. 

1. OLIPOP 

Prebiotics have seen a huge rise in popularity over the last several years. And OLIPOP has moved in with a unique soda made with plant fiber and prebiotics, perfectly positioned for the health-conscious consumer. 

Founded in 2018, the brand has gone beyond positioning itself as a “healthier” soda option akin to competitors' low-sugar alternatives. They have lengthy health-promoting credentials, listing themselves as non-GMO, gluten-free, paleo, vegan and high fiber with only 2-5g of sugar.

From approximately $852,000 in 2019, OLIPOP hit around $200 million in 2023, and $400 million in 2024, seeing a 469x increase in revenue since their first year.

Currently, OLIPOP claims a dominant 60% market share of the global prebiotic and probiotic soda market, putting it way ahead in the functional beverage category.

When it comes to retail, the brand has jumped from just 40 grocery stores in Northern California in 2019 to almost 50,000 stores across the US in 2024. The brand has been featured in major chains such as Costco, Walmart, Target and Whole Foods.

OLIPOP has risen to the top of its category, outperforming top competitors like Poppi. Their specialist selection of flavors include tried-and-true consumer favorites such as cream soda, root beer and cherry cola. 

Switching gears slightly, did you know that approximately 55% of first impressions are visual? 

Because of this, OLIPOP’s consumer research helped them uncover where their target markets were spending their time online, with the majority of Gen Z consumers favoring TikTok. 

OLIPOP has focused their marketing strategy around TikTok creator partnerships and organic content. In 2021, they hired content creator Sara Crane to run their TikTok account, who grew the account to nearly ~325k followers.

Their various content creator partnerships have generated 1.3 billion views at $0.61 CPM on TikTok.

2. Bread Beauty Supply

As one of the emerging CPG brands of 2025, Bread Beauty Supply was founded in 2020 by Maeva Heim with a mission to create high-quality, minimalist products for consumers with textured and curly hair. 

75% of black and latina consumers feel underrepresented by the beauty industry. With many expressing that the majority of products don't cater to different hair & skin types.

In 2023, the brand raised seed funding from The Fearless Fund – an early-stage venture capital firm dedicated to providing financial support to underrepresented founders, especially women and ethnic minorities. Showing a clear need for representation for the coils and curls of ethnic minority consumers, industry sources estimated Bread generated between $3 million and $5 million in revenue in their first year of business. 

In the same year, the brand launched at 300 Ulta locations and followed up with a line at favorite-beauty chains such as Sephora, Space NK, Farfetch and Selfridges. 

As Vogue reports, Bread was created for consumers with textured hair, following Heim’s experience of a total lack of representation with hair like hers, both in her hometown of Perth, Australia and in the wider global beauty industry. 

Heim was inspired by her mother who owned the first African hair braiding salon in Perth, Australia. Heim says, “It was basically this tiny shed-garage attached to the back of this Italian restaurant downtown.” She said, “The salon was almost like a mini beauty supply as well, because we’d import textured hair care products from America to have in the salon, because you couldn’t find anything like that in Australia.”

She later worked in the marketing department at L’Oréal and later had an internship at Procter & Gamble in Singapore, where she noticed a total lack of representation. She said: “After working at these big brands, I felt they weren’t talking to me, or the people who look like me,” she says, “I really felt like more women of color and more Black women specifically needed to be running these brands, so the decisions that they were making would trickle down into the market.”

The brand actively challenges negative stereotypes for textured hair, combating toxic ideas that it is frizzy, unruly, and unappealing.

Like other successful beauty and haircare brands, Heim takes inspiration from consumers online. But her approach is unique, underlining authenticity and natural hair, a welcomed deviation from consumers of the glossy celebrity-inspired, 20+-product hair care routines. 

She says, “girls I see online, rather than a celebrity,” she says. “I love seeing girls who rock their hair big and proud. I think today, especially, I’m looking up to people who have a casual approach to their hair, especially during this pandemic, where, for so long, we didn’t have access to salons,” Heim adds. “I’ve found a lot of inspiration from those who were just making it work where they could.” 

An appreciation for minimalism and authenticity is reflected in the product selection, which celebrates every curl, coil and kink pattern and houses award-winning hair oils and conditioning products in sleek glass bottles and candy-hued tubs with minimal ingredient lists. 

Heim says: "BREAD doesn’t take itself too seriously. We make high performance products that deliver quick results so that you can spend less time doing your hair, and more time doing literally anything else. Hair is important, but it’s not the be-all-end-all and we don’t pretend that it is. We want to empower people to take their time back, and feel liberated from having to spend hours on their hair, or use 20 different products."

The brand’s voice and approach to haircare can be called refreshing, original and no-nonsense and continues to resonate with consumers looking for high-quality, no-fluff products for their curls and coils. 

3. BarkBox 

From $36.02 billion in 2024, the subscription box market is predicted to grow to $41.79 billion in 2025. Offering a curated experience that often feels like unwrapping a surprise gift, subscription boxes offer both delight and convenience and give consumers the chance to explore new products they wouldn't have found otherwise. 

With the majority of the subscription box market focusing on food and beauty, BarkBox found that pet parents were underserved and decided to launch their monthly box, targeting pet parents. The monthly delivery is built around a themed box that includes two original toys and two bags of healthy treats. 

While some subscription boxes offer little cohesion, much of Barkbox's success is founded on their fun and imaginative themes that tie together their treats and toys each month. Past boxes include themes such as, "Tails From The Ice Age," "Sweetie Pie's Barkery," "Jurassic Park," "Dogstination: Tokyo," "Barkyard BBQ," and "Howliday Party."

The brand has also appealed to consumers by offering a number of customization options. Subscribers can customize their boxes based on dog breed, allergies, weight, toy styles based on dogs’ preferred way to play and preferences. 

They’ve also grown their following by partnering with small, artisan vendors rather than big pet chains with questionable quality that often alienate consumers. 

CEO and Co-Founder Carly Strife says, “We're moving into an era of consumption in which people want to be knowledgeable about what they are buying and feel more connected to products. Big companies can only do this so well and people can feel overwhelmed by the information. BarkBox also helps artisan vendors grow by giving them exposure and letting dog parents try out new products and make thoughtful purchases.”

By finding a unique niche and allowing for extensive customization options, BarkBox surpassed $25 million in sales two years after they were founded. 

4. Kosas

Clean makeup. Antioxidants and actives. And “Letting your skin breathe.” These are phrases and terms you’ll hear across TikTok and Instagram from consumers concerned with how makeup impacts their skin.

63% of consumers say they consider “clean beauty” (aka products with short product lists close to their natural source) to be extremely or very important when choosing which cosmetics to buy. 

While research shows that consumers want more products that combine skincare and makeup, driven by a desire for holistic multi-functional beauty benefits, efficiency, and cost effectiveness. 

Targeting the clean consumer, Kosas launched in 2015 — positioning themselves as, “Makeup for people who love skincare.” The brand unveiled a series of makeup products filled with nourishing ingredients that work like skincare and delivered “comfy glam” to skincare-loving consumers. 

Sharing their brand mission on their website, they write: "Our mission is to evolve beauty’s mindset toward revealing, expressing and feeling comfy in your skin. It’s good makeup (not no makeup) that’s quick, easy, can’t mess it up. And it’s clinically proven to actually make your skin better, even when it’s bare."

Kosas was founded by Sheena Zadeh-Daly, a biology major, who said she founded the consumer-driven brand because she couldn’t understand why makeup, that, “Sits on your skin for twelve hours a day,” wasn’t working harder. 

https://www.tiktok.com/@kosas/video/7467735028554845470?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7515468420596762134

As an early adopter of TikTok, the brand has seen a 405% increase in search growth — sharing skincare advice, product unboxings, fun visual content, and tips on how to use their products across their videos. Thanks to a strong social presence, many of the brand’s products have gone viral, including their Revealer Concealer and the Cloud Set Setting powder. 

Zadeh-Daly believes that consumers will continue to push the beauty industry towards more multi-functional beauty products, she says: “Consumers will continue to demand their makeup do more for them so the lines between makeup and skincare will be blurred through innovation.” 

5. Truvani 

Launched in 2017, Truvani is a direct to consumer (DTC) brand that specializes in plant-based powders and supplements that ditch additives and filler ingredients. 

Similar to consumers’ rising interest in clean beauty, consumers want their food and supplements to be closer to their wholefoods source, rather than “ultra processed,” with 55%  saying they try to avoid certain additives when shopping for food and supplements. 

The brand originally won over consumers looking for a less-chemical-filled protein powder with their Plant-Based Protein Powder, consisting of only seven ingredients. And unlike the majority of their competitors, the product contained no fillers, preservatives, artificial sweeteners or Stevia. Including a mix of consumers’ traditional favorites and more creative flavor profiles, the powder comes in twelve flavors including Lemon Cookie, Peanut Butter and Strawberry. 

The brand is highly consumer-centric. Co-founder and co-CEO Derek Halpern says that core part of the brand’s growth and 70% repurchase rate across Shopify has been down to their dedication to creating great products driven by consumers’ needs and preferences. 

The brand uses their marketing to emphasize their green credentials, talking up their lack of artificial sweeteners, short ingredients lists and health-promoting benefits like the, “gut friendly,” protein featured in their protein powders. 

They also use their marketing to differentiate themselves from other brands. For example, they highlight that their snack bar is one of the only snack bars consumers can “Make in your kitchen.” Highlighting that their product is made from only five-twelve ingredients and doesn't contain many of the common ingredients their competitors use such as malitol, palm kernel oil and gum arabic. 

6. Goodles

Mac and cheese is one of America’s favorite comfort meals. But with high calories, fat and sodium content, it’s definitely a weekday treat rather than a regular meal for many Americans. 

Enter: Goodles. Disrupting the category with a healthy take on mac and cheese. In the words of Goodles, “They (presumably your parents and the brand’s competitors) lied, you can have it all,” with mac and cheese made from real rather than ultra-processed cheese, over 21 plant-based nutrients, zero artificial flavors, and 14kg of fiber.

Founded in California in 2020, the brand has endeared themselves to consumers with super colorful, playful, childesque branding and a sharp, witty, self-aware voice that includes copywriting gems such as, “More than 10,000 mac enthusiasts have spoken,” “Little noodle, big mission,” and, “Tasting is believing — we know, we know: another healthy noddle that claims to taste good. But we really cracked the code, folks.” 

The brand looks to appeal to consumers by being both a health-focused brand that reimagines childhood favorites for adults and doesn’t take itself too seriously, unlike many other brands in the health category. Here’s a section from their About Us page: 

"For us, it’s the little things that have the biggest impact - those moments of weirdly joyful magic that we all can create in the world: the big-belly-laugh, petting-a-doggie, roller-skating-unicorn stuff that makes us just feel…gooder. These moments are everywhere, making a tastier, weirder, happier world. At GOODLES, we’re out to celebrate everybody who makes them happen."

7. Branch Basics

Branch Basics is an eco-friendly cleaning brand started by certified nutritionist Marilee Nelson in 2012. 

What differentiates Branch from their competitors? They offer an all-in-one cleaning concentrate without harmful chemicals, ethereal-looking packaging and a mission-led founder story — in which Nelson shares how good nutrition and reducing toxic chemicals has helped transform the health of her and her family. 

Branche Basics’ The Concentrate can be used to wash floors, clean produce, as a body wash, as a cleanser for pets, as a dish cleaner, to degrease the oven, to clean the laundry and to clean everything in a consumer’s bathroom. 

Marketed as, “human safe,” the cleaner is predominantly made from purified water and plant-based ingredients. A draw to eco-friendly consumers looking for safe products, the cleanser is also free from preservatives, fragrance-free, not-tested on animals and is biodegradable. 

A big part of the brand’s success has been their focus on convenience. The brand offers refills, travel products, subscriptions and starter kits. Consumers can use the concentrate for all of their cleaning needs and simply shop from their brand’s several bottle options, including foaming wash, all-purpose, laundry and streak-free bottles alongside refills. 

Branch Basics saw significant growth in 2023, hitting $40 million in revenue — an impressive 42% year-over-year increase. They have a loyal customer following with over 50,000 product subscribers, 600,000 email subscribers and 10,000 five-star reviews. They also boast a 6% referral rate, surpassing the 2% industry average. 

The company’s consumer-centric ethos is a big part of their growth. They reportedly reply to every single customer query across Instagram and TikTok. They’re constantly checking in and making sure their brand and products are connected to consumers' needs, especially ones going unmet by other brands on the market. 

Co-founder Kelly Love says: “We approach everything [by asking] What do we want? What's missing in the market? What do we, as people who are moms, as people who are health-conscious, need and want? Because, most likely, other people would need and want those things, too. We know that human health is our priority, so when we formulate products or make our marketing plans, [that] keeps everything aligned."

8. Koia

Chalky protein powders, continually having to track your macros and wondering if chickpeas count, protein-drink brand Koai acknowledges consumers’ complicated and often-stressful relationship with protein. Releasing a protein form that they dub, “creamy, craveable, low in sugar, and full of feel-good fiber.” 

They write on their website: “Most people have an “it’s complicated” relationship with protein. It’s an—on-again, off-again, force it down on Monday only to ghost it on Tuesday but ultimately come crawling back because you know you need it––situationship. Toxic? Yep. There’s serious baggage and a lot of conflicted feelings. But thanks to Koia’s substantial ingredients and emotionally available flavors, you can finally experience a loving relationship with protein. This is the one.”

The brand is empathic and consumer-driven. They market their product as low sugar, filled with prebiotic fiber, non-GMO, kosher and plant-based — making it appealing to health-conscious consumers of various needs.   

The brand is Gen Z and millennial coded, urging consumers to, “End their situationships with boring protein,” and telling their site visitors, in the style of Grey’s Anatomy, to, “Find us. Choose us. Love us.”

Founder Christopher Hunter notes how having full control over production has allowed for consumer-driven product innovation: “Innovation is core to what we do. We have more ideas and concepts than we can bring to market, so a big part of my role—which doesn’t come naturally to me—is actually slowing down and focusing on what’s working. Innovating too quickly can lead to self-inflicted setbacks. Vertical integration, though, has opened new doors for us, especially with packaging.

For instance, we found that our customers buy multiple bottles at once and use Koia in different ways beyond single-serving consumption. The 12-ounce bottle works well for on-the-go use, but some people were adding it to cereal, using it as a smoothie base, or even as a protein creamer. A single-serve bottle isn’t ideal for that, so we launched a 32-ounce multi-serve version of our top flavors, which is now available at Sprouts and expanding further in retail.”

9. JuneShine 

JuneShine was founded in June 2018 by Greg Serrao and Joshua Makler in San Diego, California. The duo started brewing hard kombucha in their garage, looking to create a healthier organic alcoholic beverage backed by the tagline, “Honest alcohol for a healthier planet.” 

In 2021, the company raised $24 million in a series B round after tripling their revenue between 2019 and 2020. 

As a brand looking to target the thoughtful, health-and-planet conscious consumer, Makler and Serrao set out to create a kombucha that was both healthy and sustainably made: "It all started as we were wandering the aisles of our local grocery store: Why do we know so much about the food we eat, but not the alcohol we drink? This simple question led us to create JuneShine.

We brew alcohol that you can feel better about drinking. It's all handcrafted in San Diego, CA with real, premium ingredients. No sketchy sweeteners, syrups, or artificial flavors. Everything is sustainably produced, too–we're completely carbon neutral and donate one percent of sales to environmental nonprofits."

Their first brew was Blood Orange Mint which included green tea, honey, fruit juice, spices and their Jun kombucha base. Four years after launching, the brand’s founders noted that they had begun seeing sustainable disruptors brewing hard kombucha everywhere — to stay ahead, they released a line of sugar-free cocktails made from premium spirits, real fruit juice, and sparkling water. 

When it comes to the brand’s values, their green credentials have helped win over consumers. The company was the first hard kombucha brewery to use small-scale CO2 recovery technology.

JuneShine have built their brand with several ​​flavors designed by the brand’s celebrity ambassadors, including Whitney Cummings, Evan Mock, Cody Ko, Ali Krieger, Ashlyn Harris and Ty Haney.

As one of the most effective marketing strategies, one in four companies spend around 40% of their marketing budget on influencer campaigns, including ones that feature celebrities. Celeb-led campaigns can improve brand recall among consumers by up to 80%. 

Let’s take a look at how our top CPG brands in 2025 are successfully differentiating themselves from their CPG competitors. 

Founder-led consumer empathy 

The majority of brands on this list have strong origin stories, fueling resonance with like-minded consumers. Take Kosas, Sheena shares in her founder’s story that Kosas came together by combining things that she loved, from holistic wellness to color theory, helping her connect to consumers who also love beauty, wellness and skincare. While her background as a biologist lends a sense of credibility and expertise to the brand.

Strong founder stories differentiate brands and create emotional connections with target audiences. Hugo Lesser at Startups Magazine says: 

“For brands, telling a story can create or transform the perception of the brand in customers’minds. Stories also humanise the brand, and inspire an immediate emotional connection. Almost all successful brands use storytelling, with the most compelling brand stories not just evoking emotions, but generating a talking point that can take on a life of its own.”

Researchers at Boise State University note that brand stories are also important for building brand authenticity. They write: 

“Research in the consumer and psychology literature indicate messages in narrative format are uniquely suited to influence consumer beliefs because narrative processing suppresses counter-arguing and is enjoyed by consumers (van Laer et al., 2014). 

Consistent with this academic research, practitioners and popular business press (e.g., Carnoy, 2016) describe founder’s stories, a specific type of marketing narrative, as the “perfect marketing tool,” because of their effect on perceived brand authenticity and to managers who invest resources to differentiate their brand from competitors (Beverland, 2010). 

Perceptions of brand authenticity have been linked to values-in-action (Bex, Atkinson, & Bench-Capon, 2014), and narratives about brand founders allow companies to describe the values and actions that reflect the brand’s authenticity.”

Brands that connect are typically led by founders who know the why behind their product and use it to connect with consumers. Their brands are typically purpose-led, transparent and authentic. 

These founders also understand deeply who their consumers are; their values, what drives their buying decisions, their cultural background and psychographics. Understanding and connecting with consumers is an essential part of how they do business and build their brand. 

Many of these brands put in place agile feedback loops to make sure they understand their target customers, both before launch and at frequent intervals after. Agile feedback loops involve collecting feedback and insights from customers through a range of research methods including surveys, customer interviews and user tests. Insights teams analyze this data and use it to guide business decisions, through product development to marketing and branding. 

Found out how to ace your concept testing in our in-depth guide. 

Digital-first launch strategies 

Several of the brands on my list have used digital-first launch strategies to grow their brands. 

Many are using influencer and content creator partnerships to improve brand reach and awareness and drive sales. 

As I cover on the brand above, OLIPOP generated an impressive 1.3 billion views at $0.61 CPM on TikTok with creator partnerships. 

Key to the brand’s success has been their authenticity. Their approach to TikTok content creator partnerships was built on influencer seeding. Rather than paying for a partnership like some of their competitors, they gifted their product, this approach helped propel their popularity by encouraging more authentic content from creators who genuinely loved their soda. They also used social listening to track brand mentions, giving them an avenue for finding more genuine partnerships with influencers. 

 "People assume influencer marketing is all about cash deals," says Steven Vigilante, director of strategic partnerships at Olipop. "But some of our best partnerships started with a free sample and a conversation."

He adds: "We gifted products like crazy and tracked organic responses. If someone posted about us on their own, that was our sign they could be a great brand partner."

Another effective digital strategy is a subscription-based model. Brands like BarkBox and Branch Basics that offer subscription-based models provide convenience, product discovery, and a community to consumers. On the brand side, these models offer predictable revenue and help retain customers. 

Zappi tip: An effective digital strategy often requires rapid testing of both concepts and messaging. Test concepts, creative, and content before you invest your time and allocate resources to a large-scale campaign. 

Data-driven targeting 

The more data you have, the more influence you’ll have over consumer behavior. Many of the most successful CPG brands use first-party DTC data and retail insights to gain deeper insights into their audiences. 

First-party DTC data can give you insights into consumer behavior and preferences which you can use to personalize your marketing and better support the customer journey. Adding retail data into the mix can help you understand the customer journey and how it weaves between offline and online channels.  

Zappi tip: Pairing your first-party DTC data with agile consumer testing can give you a huge advantage. You can use consumer testing to test messaging and campaign ideas, refining your ideas and messages with real-time feedback. You can test your ideas with different audience segments, deepening your understanding of what they want and need from your brand and product. 

Sustainability & clean-label positioning 

From JuneShine to Branch Basics, many emerging CPG brands in 2025 are growing their revenue by meeting consumers’ demands for sustainable packaging, production methods, and products. 

PwC's 2024 Voice of the Consumer Survey found that consumers typically spend an average of 9.7% more on sustainable products. While 66% of U.S. shoppers say that sustainability is a priority for them when making purchases. In addition, nearly 3 in 4 consumers say they reconsider purchases based on ingredient lists, with consumers looking for recognizable ingredients close to their natural source and full transparency when it comes to their ingredients lists. 

McKinsey found that consumers care about sustainability and back up this claim with their purchasing decisions. However, they note that many CPG brands often notice a conflict between what consumers say they want and the actual consumer demand they see for products backed by environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives is the inability to generate sufficient consumer demand for these products. 

They report: 

“Accurately assessing demand for products that make these claims is vital as companies think about where to make ESG-related investments across their businesses. Companies should therefore be eager to better understand whether and how these types of claims influence consumers’ purchasing decisions. 

Is a shopper more likely to purchase a product if there’s an ESG-related claim printed on its package? What about multiple claims? Are some kinds of claims more resonant than others? Does a claim matter more if it’s appended to a pricier product? Is it less meaningful if it comes from a big, established brand?"

According to a subsequent study from McKinsey, they found that products making ESG-related claims averaged 28% cumulative growth over a five-year period, versus 20% for products that didn’t make these claims. They went on to identify over 93 different ESG-related claims—including “vegan,” “eco-friendly” and “biodegradable.” They then broke down these claims into six classifications: animal welfare, environmental sustainability, organic-farming methods, plant-based ingredients, social responsibility and sustainable packaging.

As a brand, it’s essential to understand which claims matter to the consumers you want to target. Carbon neutrality, vegan status and sustainable packaging will resonate differently with different customer segments. 

Zappi tip: Adopting early and repeat testing of your products and positioning can help you to understand what your audience wants from you and accelerate adoption. Uncover which sustainability and health claims matter most to your audience and how you can effectively communicate them. 

Read up on sustainable advertising practices in our past post.

Let’s take a look at some of the strategic levels you can pull as CMO. 

Paid + owned synergy 

Synergy between paid and owned media channels is essential for helping to improve the effectiveness of your marketing. 

Strategically combine your paid and owned channels to amplify their effectiveness. Move consumers along the customer journey by making it easy for them to buy your product after they've sampled it. For example, you can include a stock of ready-to-buy items at your events or share a QR code that they can use to buy your product online at a discounted rate. 

Experiential sampling and commerce blending 

Use experiential sampling to give consumers the chance to try your products through pop-up stores, interactive displays or curated events. For example, if you're selling a beverage, you could set up a mini pop-up bar in a retail store and serve free samples with cocktail and mocktail blends. Experiential sampling offers an immersive, highly engaging brand experience while increasing brand awareness and encouraging purchases. 

Set up smaller-scale tests pre-launch or pre-scale to see which kind of sampling experiences perform best with your audience. Collect consumers' reflections on their thoughts, feelings and behaviors after the experience in their natural environment and use this data to shape your experiential sampling strategy.

Move consumers along the customer journey by making it easy for them to buy your product after they've sampled it. For example, you can include a stock of ready-to-buy items at your events or share a QR code that they can use to buy your product online at a discounted rate. 

Content partnerships and micro-influencers 

As we’ve seen, content partnerships are often an essential part to a CPG brand’s success. Concentrate your attention on micro-influencers with 10,000 and 100,000 followers. Micro-influencers typically have engagement rates up to 60% higher than macro-influencers. In comparison to macro-influencers, micro-influencers often also have more affordable rates — making them a more cost-efficient way to grow your brand. 

JuneShine is a great place to look for inspiration on how to build successful content partnerships with micro-influencers. The brand looked for people who had already mentioned their product on TikTok and also sent free gifts to people they thought may love their drinks, this allowed them to build more genuine relationships with influencers and improved reach and engagement as the influencers they worked with were genuinely excited about their products. 

Improve the effectiveness of your campaigns by running small-scale tests on your messaging and content with your content partners. This will give you real-time feedback on what type of content and creative and performs best with your target audience. When you're ready to expand your campaigns for broader amplification with additional partnerships, you'll have the insights you need to guide your strategy. 

Retail media network utilization 

Almost two-thirds of marketers increased their investments in retail media in 2024. Use Retail Media Networks (RMNs) to create targeted ads with first-party customer data on owned media channels. RMNs can use first-party data to segment and target customers based on their browsing habits, content preferences and purchase history. 

RMNs allow you to target consumers at the most important moments of the customer journey, both online and offline, using several sources of first-party data to personalize their ads. You can target high-intent shoppers through RMNs with in-store digital displays, sponsored product ads and social media platforms. 

Test concepts for retail channels before mass distribution. Use RMNs to run targeted experiments on different aspects of your retail strategy such as promotions, product placements and creative displays. First-party data allows you to track consumers' real-time responses to your strategy, helping you to rapidly iterate and improve your strategy before mass distribution across your retail channels. 

Let’s take a look at the KPIs to track emerging brand momentum. 

Search growth and brand share 

Share of search represents 83% of a brand’s market share. To assess your share of search, analyze the ratio of your brand's search volume to the total search volume for your category. 

This metric can show you how much awareness consumers have of your brand and product in comparison to your competitors. If your search share is increasing, it highlights growing brand visibility and suggests you’ll see growth in your market share shortly after. 

Shelf velocity and subscription LTV 

Tracking your shelf velocity alongside your subscription or customer lifetime value can give you insights into how well you're performing in the retail space and how loyal your customers are. 

If you use a subscription-based model or track direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales, LTV can show you the total revenue a customer will likely bring in throughout their relationship with your brand. A rise in LTV during the early stages of your business shows that customers are making repeat purchases and showing a high level of loyalty to your brand. 

It also highlights a strong product-market fit, indicating that consumers have a need or strong desire for your product. LTV is also a great way to predict your future revenue, helping you to better allocate your resources. 

Shelf velocity measures how quickly your product sells off the shelf in a particular store over a specified time period. This is typically calculated as units per store per week. High shelf velocity is a strong indicator of consumer resonance and demand. It highlights that there'll likely be high demand for your products in other stores and locations.  

Digital signals 

It’s also important to track digital signals. Engagement (from likes to comments across social), conversion rates, and ecommerce performance are all key indicators of how well your product, brand and marketing campaigns are resonating with your audience. 

To give your content and campaigns the best chance of succeeding as early as possible, test your creative and messaging with a consumer insights tool like Zappi to see which of them have the most potential to influence these key metrics. 

Strategic media investments ROI 

Strategic media investments that include a blend of your target consumers’ favorite channels, including search, TV, web and social media is an effective way to grow your brand.  To assess the profitability of each campaign and channel, track your ROI. 

ROI can help guide the allocation of your budget going forward, helping you allocate more of your resources to your top-performing channels. For maximum ROI, use Zappi to test campaign creative and messaging. 

To avoid disruption, CPG brands should focus on agility and consumer centricity. Here's how. 

Acquisition vs. incubator vs. spin-off lab 

As a larger brand, you need to decide whether to acquire disruptive startups, establish internal incubators or create separate spin-off labs. 

Acquisitions typically offer speed to market and give you access to proven established talent. On the downside, acquisitions can be challenging and are typically expensive — including both the purchase price and the expense involved with integrating the business with your own. In comparison, internal incubators allow you to test and innovate. While spin-off labs deliver autonomy, allowing you to push forward with experimentation. 

To assess which is right for you, it's important to get clarity on your goals and also assess the level of risk involved with each approach. 

Internal innovation culture 

From brand to product, as we’ve seen the most successful CPGs are those that continually innovate. 

In the words of Matt Banholzer, expert in strategic growth and innovation at McKinsey: “Our research suggests that we may be transitioning to a new era shaped by new technology platforms and major demographic shifts. To thrive in this world, you have to innovate, because what got you here may not get you there. Many of your business norms, operating models, or products may not be effective in the future and not innovating may be riskier than making big bets on growth opportunities. Times of uncertainty require not only battening down the hatches but using productivity to generate cash flows with which you can establish beachheads for new growth.”

Support a culture of innovation by encouraging a culture of asking questions, cultivating new ideas and experimenting with new processes and products. 

Guide product development and gain deeper insights into evolving customer needs with continuous feedback loops, in which consumer insights are consistently collected, shared across departments and used to guide your product, branding, and marketing decisions. 

AI-based consumer insights platforms like Zappi can help you make this shift at scale, helping you to respond faster to both changes in consumer’ behavior and preferences and the wider market. Zappi accelerates concept creation, testing and optimization with real-time consumer feedback —  helping you to test smarter and avoid being outpaced. 

Expand your potential for innovation by pooling and analyzing fast amounts of customers with our AI capabilities, using our tool to highlight and explore new possibilities for your brand and products. Use our AI agents to experiment and generate new ideas. And find out what consumers want to see from your brand and product lines with our real-time feedback collection tools. 

Co-branding and joint pilots 

For CPG brands, co-branding initiatives and joint pilots allow you to set the groundwork for reaching new audiences and entering new categories with the support of partner brands. 

“Product-market fit can make or break a company. This is why a winning market is a kind of Holy Grail for product managers. They realize the “market” part of the product-market equation is the piece of the puzzle that determines success.

Despite this, many product managers still follow a more traditional approach where they focus on a go-to-market plan that hinges on mass adoption of their features. Spoiler alert—that only works if you already have a proven market. If you don’t yet have a proven market, a pilot is an effective way to reverse engineer product-market fit by building a solution for a single customer and then scaling it to win the entire market.” — Clement Kao, Founder at Product Teacher 

This strategic lever involves testing partnership concepts and co-branded offers with consumers before you roll out a full-scale, expensive launch. Small-scale testing allows you to see if there is resonance with consumers, refine your target audiences, improve your messaging, identify potential risk, and assess how well your partner fits your brand goals and values. 

This form of testing can also help you identify and uncover unlikely successes, as Mintel reports, "In March 2023, Ice cream brand Van Leeuwen partnered with salad dressing brand Hidden Valley to launch a limited-time only (yes, this is going exactly where you think is going) ranch-flavored ice cream. The owned-TikTok post below shows media outlets and celebrities reacting exactly as you might expect someone would react if a pint of ranch ice cream is put in front of them: surprise, doubt, but most importantly, curiosity and a willingness to try it. Just curiosity alone can push people that are not even familiar with Van Leeuwen to try the brand, thus helping with brand awareness and recall."

Rising CPG brands know that success in the industry demands agility, consumer closeness and rapid iteration. By continuously listening to, testing with and learning from consumers in an agile way, you can make sure your products and marketing are guided by what consumers actually want and protect your market share.

Quick checklist for brands

1. Test, test, test: Content, creative, product and partnerships. Test them all early and often. 

2. Build genuine partnerships with content creators who already love your product: Use social listening to listen for brand and product mentions, build partnerships with content creators who have shown a genuine interest in your product. 

3. Employ continuous feedback loops: Get real-time feedback on your concepts and products from consumers and use these insights to guide your marketing, branding and product development decisions. 

4. Differentiate, don’t replicate: When it comes to your product, continually look for new ways you can to innovate. 

5. Track brand growth and product resonance with the right metrics: From subscription LTV to digital signals, continue to track several metrics and use them to guide your decisions. 

Find out how CPG leaders are using Zappi to drive innovation speed and market success here.