Founder @Social Hit | TikTok Agency | Producing the best TikTok content and turboboosting performance with TikTok ads 🚀| Average ROI increase of 67% by using Socialhit content.

🚀 We Help 8/9+ Figure Brands Win on TikTok

If you’re a 8/9+-figure business owner struggling with TikTok, chances are you’re facing one (or more) of these problems:

1️⃣ Your TikTok Ads aren’t outperforming Meta.
2️⃣ You’re not producing quality, on-brand TikTok content at scale.
3️⃣ You are creating content—but it’s not converting into organic revenue.

We solve all three. Effortlessly.

💡 Proven Results

J — 180M+ TikTok impressions in Month 1

PG — £5M in Paid Ads Revenue in 90 days

CS — £15M+ Revenue from UGC in Q2 2025

SC — +400K TikTok followers in just 3 months

Countless other brands — dominating TikTok organically & through paid

To date, we’ve produced 120,000+ pieces of UGC for TikTok.
One single piece generated £130M+ in revenue, with many others surpassing £100K+ each.

Barney Brown

JK & Associates is a marketing strategy consulting firm for consumer / B2C / D2C / C2C brands and platforms. We help businesses to sustainably grow revenue and profitability by aligning the 4Ps with consumer demand and the largest profit pools in the market.

Over the past few years, we have helped dozens of clients achieve profitable growth.
Our approach is built around three clear steps:

(1) Diagnosing growth barriers

(2) Validating hypotheses through data and market analysis

(3) Providing strategic recommendations based on customer value and market opportunities

Our consulting philosophy is consumer-centric, market-driven, and pragmatic.

You can find more information on our website:
👉 www.juliakinnerassociates.com


If this sounds interesting to you, feel free to reach out here or send an email to:
📩 julia@juliakinnerassociates.com

I look forward to hearing from you!
Julia
---

#growthmarketing
#strategicmarketing
#strategy
#growth
#fractionalcmo
#consulting
#marketingconsultant

Julia Kinner

113 brands. Less than 2% market share. 
36% of all FMCG growth in 2025.

Bain just published their 10th annual Insurgent Brands list.
And the jaw dropping number isn't the brand count.

IT'S THE GROWTH EFFICIENCY GAP
With 2%(!) market share insurgents capture 36%(!) of market growth and generate 28x more growth than the average incumbent.

𝗜𝗻 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗵: large brands are dead wood when it comes to category growth. 
Btw. this contains only tracked retail. DTC, Amazon, emerging platforms aren't counted and the real number is probably much higher. 
Worth mentioning: in beauty and personal care, insurgents captured nearly ALL growth in 2025.

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗱𝗼 𝗶𝘁
Surgical positioning on unmet needs:
→ Clean ingredients (44% of food insurgents carry natural/organic claims)
→ High protein (~40% of food insurgents)
→ Whole-body and ingredient-led personal care
→ Functional beverages with a clear reason to exist

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿
These brands don't win on awareness.
They don't win on distribution.
They win because they understand exactly who they're for and build everything around that.
Velocity first. Distribution second. 

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸
Byron Sharp says: reach everyone, grow through mental availability.
Insurgents prove: find your highest-value consumer segment, over-deliver for them, and they'll do the rest. 

𝗕𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲
If your brand is €50–100M and growing slower than the market, the answer is almost never more reach.
It's better targeting. 
Sharper value proposition. 
Deeper understanding of who drives your profit pool.
That's the insurgent playbook.

Find this useful? → Repost 🙏

How Small Brands Grow – A Replicable Approach to Start & Scale Brands | Growth Strategy & Execution for Consumer Brands | Value Based Segmentation | Follow & Hit the BELL for Daily Strategy Advice

𝗖𝗘𝗢𝘀, 𝗖𝗠𝗢𝘀: 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗹
𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸

Bain published the insurgent brands 2026 and most party poopers say "most of them will fail."

And they are right. 
Success rate for startups is thin and failure is the rule.

However, the really interesting question is: 
Why do they fail?

Not because the product is wrong.
Not because the consumer need isn't real.
They have proved that already.

They're playing the wrong game, using a business growth model unfit for their phase.


𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀

Every insurgent on Bain's list started in the same place. With a consumer need nobody was properly solving.

Chomps saw that consumers wanted clean, high-protein snacks without an ingredient list that reads like a chemistry book. 

Olipop understood that people wanted the soda experience without the health consequences. 

Mando identified that whole-body odor was a real unsolved problem no incumbent wanted to own because it felt too niche.

That's not a coincidence. 
It's the pattern.

The best insurgents don't just enter categories. They expose what's broken in them and build a killer value proposition around it.

Here's the thing:

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗲𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵

Because the playbook has phases and each phase demands different priorities, tools and KPIs.

𝗔𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽, one thing matters. Prove that a specific consumer with a specific unmet need will choose you repeatedly. 
One hero product. Lowest-barrier channels. No listing fees. No national campaigns. Rate of sale and repurchase rate are the only numbers that count.

Not the time for mass reach. 
Not the time for awareness. 
The time to prove velocity.

𝗔𝘁 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲-𝘂𝗽, the playbook shifts. Broaden selectively. Serve adjacent needs. Selective distribution expansion, but only where consumer pull already exists. Never push distribution ahead of velocity. Ever.

𝗔𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆, you build omnichannel presence. Now you run synced BTL and ATL at scale. Now reach and awareness become the right tools.


𝗦𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴
The insurgents that survive aren't just better. They're more disciplined. They know exactly what phase they're in. They know exactly what it requires. And they don't jump ahead because an investor pushed them or a retailer offered shelf space.

15 insurgent brands have crossed $1 billion in revenue. Rao's. e.l.f. Cosmetics. CeraVe. Chobani. They didn't get there by scaling fast. They got there by scaling right.

𝗕𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲
Most insurgents fail because they ran the wrong playbook.

If you're building an insurgent brand and want a structured framework to define your value proposition and build the right growth model for your stage, comment "How Small Brands Grow" below and I'll send you the 83 page pdf with the full framework an 10 use case

𝗖𝗘𝗢𝘀 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆. 
Most of it is wasted before it starts.

Not because the strategy is wrong.
Because it's built on the wrong question.
Most brands ask: "Who is our consumer?"

The question that actually drives growth: 
"Which consumers are worth winning and what would it take to win them?"

Those aren't the same questions and confusing them is why most brand strategies go nowhere in market.

Here's how making the difference looks like:

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟭: 𝗦𝗲𝗴𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲
Before you touch the market, understand your existing consumers. 
Not demographics. 
Not age and gender. 
Value segments.

Who are your high-value consumers? 
What triggers brought them in? 
What barriers almost stopped them? 
What job are they hiring your brand to do?

This is hypothesis generation. 
You're not looking for answers yet. 
You're building the right questions.

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟮: 𝗦𝗲𝗴𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁
Now you test:
Segment size. 
Willingness to pay. 
Point of market entry. 
Path to purchase. 
4P preferences by segment.

Most brands skip Step 1 and go straight here but that's a mistake. Without the hypotheses from Step 1, you're likely testing the wrong things and interpreting the answers through the wrong lens.

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟯: 𝗗𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗪𝗶𝗻
Now you make choices: 
Target segments. 
Winning value proposition. 
4P decisions that are built for those specific segments.
This is where most brands start which means they're making strategic choices without knowing which consumers are actually worth the investment or what it would take to convert them.

𝗕𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲
Most brands treat segmentation as a research exercise.
The best insurgent brands treat it as their first strategic decision.
Segment first. 
Then build the strategy. 

The visual is the framework we use at JK & Associates AG to take brands from consumer insight to strategic choices. If you want to understand how it applies to your brand, let's talk.

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To everyone bashing McDonald's over that CEO video
You ALL watched the wrong thing.


Yes, it was funny (especially the video I reposted) 
Yes, Chris Kempczinski's bite was ridiculous. 
Yes, he called it a "product."


But while everyone was laughing, nobody noticed what was in the frame. 
• McDonald's red and yellow
• Big Arch branding
• Golden packaging
• Everywhere, the entire time

TRUTH IS 
This video was a 90-sec Brand-Asset-Reel packaged as a cringe moment.

Burger King clapped back fairly brilliantly. Their CEO 
• Took a real bite
• Acted like a human
• Perfect authenticity

The internet loved him for it.

But here's the question nobody is asking: 
Whose logo were you looking at for 48 hours straight? 
McDonald's. 
Inescapably & globally.

BK's video had a guy and a burger. Nothing memorable once the dust has settled. Some might understand the "flame-grilled" thing. But let's be honest, that's for the pros.

McDonald's had a "PR disaster" wrapped in a $50M brand identity that was doing exactly what brand identity is designed to do → burn itself into your brain whether you like it or not. This is here to stay.

If you ask me: 
The bashers got played. 
Burger King got played. 
We all got played. 
And ultimately McDonald's did pretty well and comparative bashing usually favours the BIG (Mac).

Please start bashing below ;) 
First come first serve.

CEOs, CMOs: If you need 98% of shelf space for 64% of growth, you don't have a distribution problem. You have a...

Relevance problem
Proposition problem
Consumer problem

And the data has been telling you for 10 years.

𝗔 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

 • 2012–2016: Insurgents capture 25% of FMCG growth. 
 • 2014–2018: Rise to 30%. 
 • 2022: 10%. ONE dip because large CPG take pricing like crazy.
 • 2023–2024: 20%-39% of growth. 
 • 2025: 36% of total FMCG market growth

Bain's 2026 forecast: 50% of market growth over the next five years.


BOTTOMLINE:
They didn't stabilize. 
They accelerated. 
And there is every structural reason to believe this continues.

Here's why:
(1) Barriers to entry keep falling. 

- You no longer need a factory to launch a product.
- You don't need a retailer to find your first 10,000 customers. 
- You don't need a media budget to build a brand. 

(2) Digital P2P
As purchase journeys digitize, incumbents lose the two things that protected them for decades

(1) Shelf dominance 
(2) Mass media reach


𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗹𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲:

[1] Their growth model is broken
98% of shelf space. 64% of growth. This isn't a blip it's a structural decay. 
Why? Decades of portfolio bloat, SKU proliferation, and consensus-driven innovation have left large brands optimized for scale instead of relevance.


[2] The 2022 "win" was pure accounting
Large CPGs raised prices 3.5x more than insurgents. Higher prices = higher revenue = bigger share of growth on paper. But volume? Flat. You can't price your way to relevance.


[3] Distribution and awareness stop being enough
Large brands have both in abundance. And they're still struggle to create incremental growth. 
Why? Because the consumer has moved. They want specificity: specific ingredients, specific benefits, specific values. 


[4] SKU proliferation killed their propositions
Why? Complexity is a hiding place. It feels like portfolio strategy. It isn't. It's the result of internal politics and poor strategic decisions that aren't aligned with consumer needs and the profit pools behind.


[5] $60 billion is not a trend
It's a structural shift. Since 2017, nearly 400 insurgent brands have generated $60 billion in incremental US retail sales = 50% more than the top three consumer products companies combined. 

Why won't they acknowledge it? 
Because acknowledging it means acknowledging the model is broken. 
That's a conversation no one wants to have.


[6] 15 insurgents have crossed $1 billion in revenue. Rao's. e.l.f. Cosmetics. CeraVe. Monster. Chobani. Not scrappy underdogs anymore. Category leaders. Built on precision.
Why it matters? Because it destroys the last remaining excuse: insurgents can't scale. They can. 


Find this useful? → Repost

𝗖𝗘𝗢, 𝗖𝗠𝗢: 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗱𝗶𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽. 
They die at scale-up. 

Bain has tracked it for a decade and the numbers are brutal: 
40% of insurgent brands drop off the list YOY. Not because they failed at startup. Because they couldn't maintain their growth rates through scale-up transition. Of ~400 insurgents tracked since 2017, fewer than 4% crossed $1 billion.


𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀
They take the startup playbook that made them win and apply it to a problem it isn't designed to solve and the razor focus that built €100M becomes a ceiling. 

- The single hero product isn't a full brand & portfolio. 
- The DTC channel isn't a growth engine at scale. 
- The founding team that ran on conviction and now needs discipline and sequencing.

And then the pressure comes:
An investor wants distribution numbers. 
A major retailer offers shelf space. 
A board pushes for a national campaign.

So they push distribution ahead of velocity. 
They launch new SKUs before the core is truly scalable. 
They run mass awareness campaigns before they've built a repeatable commercial model.

Velocity collapses. 
Retailers delist. 
Growth stalls.

That's not a market problem. 
That's a playbook problem.


𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲-𝘂𝗽 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝟯 𝗿𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀
01. Distribution follows demand. Never leads it
Before you open a new channel, prove consumer pull already exists there. Then expand. Brands that grow distribution faster than velocity burn trade budget, get delisted, and damage retailer relationships.

02. Broaden the value proposition but stay in your lane
The question is never "what new products can we launch?" It's "what adjacent unmet needs are we credibly positioned to solve?"

03. Build the capability your next phase requires
At startup you outsourced everything and that was right. At scale-up, the functions that are strategic need to come in-house. 
Consumer insight. 
Retail execution. 
Brand management. 
You cannot outsource your way to €500M.


𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗻𝗼𝘄
Forget repurchase rate as your north star. 
You've already proven loyalty at startup.

Track these instead:
→ Velocity per point of distribution. Are you turning fast enough in each door?
→ Numeric distribution. Are you in the right doors at all?
→ Margin contribution by channel. Is growth actually profitable or are you diluting profitability as the channel grows?

If velocity is declining as distribution grows, stop. You're pushing. 
Pull back, fix the proposition or the execution, then expand again.


---

This is part of my ongoing series on How Small Brands Grow. Yesterday's post covered all three phases. Comment "How Small Brands Grow" and I'll send you the full 83-page framework PDF.

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🇬🇧 London. Night one. A pub.
I ordered two pints:
→ Guinness
→ Guinness Zero

The barman looked at me like I was conducting a science experiment.

He wasn't wrong.

I'll give Guinness Zero this: 
they got close. 
Impressively close.

The pour is right. 
The colour is right. 
The creamy head is right.

But to everyone that says you can't make a difference: sorry but you're taste blind

🙀

I'm here all week and planning more trips this year. Fancy settling this over a pint? DM me. First round's on me. 🍺

Academia is completely missing the mark on masstige marketing and the REAL question hasn't even been asked

I just read a systematic review of 75 academic papers published on masstige over the past 20 years. Thanks to Muskan Chaurasia for sharing it.

Too bad most isn't actionable for marketers.
Here’s what's proven:
Masstige works because it makes feel good with less price-pain vs. prestige.

Most of the literature focuses on:
– how masstige brands make people feel
– what they signal socially
– which personality traits correlate with liking them

None of it is linked to spend, frequency, margin, or lifetime value.
And none of it explains what actually determines whether a masstige brand scales or dies.

👇 
The real question for CEOs and CMOs hasn’t even been asked:
How do you grow a masstige brand?

1. What are the segments to target
HVC / SHVC = high- and super-high-value segments that spend disproportionately on the category and have high engagement.

2. What’s the core growth driver
Earned desire through product superiority, professional credibility, transparency, cultural storytelling, etc.

3. What’s the right value proposition
Desire- and/or product-superiority–led, addressing core consumer drivers linked to higher willingness to pay.

4. What’s the right pricing strategy
Aspiration without exclusion. Pricing at ~2–5x mass signals superiority but doesn’t restrict access. Premium is earned through product, credibility, or cultural relevance.

5. What’s the right channel strategy
Channel choices based on consumer mix, consumer pull, and shopping mission that ensure rotation while supporting the positioning.

6. What’s the right promotional strategy
Desirability- and authority-led, social-first, with rare and strategic price promotions.

7. How to handle innovation
Address adjacent needs of the hero product to create a clear upsell and premiumisation path for HVC / SHVC and premiumize MVC. 

8. What’s the role of D2C
A strategic asset to build the brand, increase CLTV, and enable social selling and affiliate networks.

9. What are the key risks and challenges
Over-distribution pulls the brand into mass. Under-investment in aspiration loses HVC / SHVC to more mass or prestige alternatives.

10. Brand evolution
How the playbook must adjust across start-up, scale-up, and maturity and what a realistic ceiling looks like given the core target segments (~25% of population), plus how profit pools can be expanded without diluting the brand.

All 10 are key for growing a masstige brand, but there's little guidance for CEOs and CMOs. 

That’s why we’re publishing “How Small Brands Grow Masstige – A Replicable Approach to Start and Scale Masstige Brands.”

If you want to be among the first to receive the full publication including the masstige growth framework and use cases from Charlotte Tilbury, The Ordinary, Olaplex, Sol de Janeiro, and Dyson comment “oh yes” below and subscribe to the D2C CEO Newsletter.

CMOs, your budget problem isn’t a budget problem.
It’s a ....


capital allocation problem.

You know the pattern:
CMO: “We need more budget to hit acquisition targets.”
CFO: “CAC is rising. Efficiency is declining. Do more with what you have.”

Uncomfortable truth?
The CFO is right.

Across category the economics typically look like this:
• Top 20–30% of customers drive ~70% of total category value.
• The remaining 70% contribute only ~30%.

Now here’s the real issue.
When marketing spend is mapped against those value pools, the alignment is usually inverted.

~30% of budget reaches high-value segments.
~70% of budget goes to low-contribution segments.

Not because teams are careless.
But because segmentation isn’t built around value concentration.
So budget keeps getting optimized.
But capital is never reallocated.
And that’s why efficiency deteriorates.

BOTTOMLINE:
Before asking for more budget, ask:
What is our spend-to-value ratio by segment?
• Are we over-investing where value is thin?
• Are we under-investing where profit concentrates?
• Do we know the 4P preferences of our highest-value customers?
• Have we mapped current allocation vs. optimal allocation?

Most companies haven’t.
And that’s where the leverage sits.
Marketing rarely needs more money.
It needs sharper prioritization.

Most Segmentations are like Tinder dates: 
Nice picture, fancy text, zero value

Over the past few years, I’ve reviewed countless segmentations.
Sad truth: nearly all of them are worthless.
Nice pics, fancy texts but zero value.

Why?
Because they're done wrong.


The problems

1. No strategic “so what”
They randomly cluster consumers without link to the deeper strategic questions of the business. They fail to inform value proposition, portfolio choices, pricing, or channel priorities and don’t answer: 
- Who do we win with today? 
- Who do we want to win with tomorrow?
- What does it take?

2. Not actionable
Agencies hand over pretty slides, but teams ask: What the heck do we do with this? 
Most segmentations can’t guide concrete decisions because they’re built on the wrong dimensions. They aren’t tied closely enough to product, channels, pricing, communication and therefore lack actionability regarding your value propsosition and 4P choices.

3. Not value-focused
Many segmentations are colorful “personas” with needs and lifestyles but NO mention of size of the prize. However, without sizing the opportunity, you can’t prioritize segments based on value at stake. No sizing = no way to make trade-offs or plan a growth roadmap that goes from the top to the bottom in terms of value at stake and right to win. 

4. No P2P metrics included
You have segments, but it's unlcear what's awareness, cosideration and purchase? Big mistake because it leaves key questions open. 

The solutions

1. Strategic “so what.”
A good segmentation informs your strategy. 
It answers: 
- What’s the value? 
- Who should we prioritize? 
- What’s our right to win? 
- How does this shape our 4Ps?

2. Actionable
Your segmentation is a decision-making tool, not a poster. It must enable “where to play / how to win” choices i.e. tailoring your portfolio, adjusting pricing strategy, aligning channels, and refining price-point architecture.

3. Value-focused
Every segment should have a clear economic value attached. This allows you to quantify the size of the prize and prioritize resources accordingly.

4. Clear on status-quo of P2P
That's for the G.O.A.T.S: 
your segmentation allows you to understand what's the awarenss, consideration and conversion which forms a solid starting point for budget allocation.


Bottom line:
Bad segmentations are like Tinder dates: nice on paper, disappointing in reality. Developing a good one requires more than endless swiping. It needs rigour and the right approach.

Managing Director @ Disrupt | Exited Founder

The McDonald’s CEO TRYING to eat a McDonald’s burger is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen 😅

Why is he so unsure? 
Why did they film this?
More importantly, why did they post it?

I know we’re all keen to get senior leadership onto TikTok but hmm… yeah, maybe not.

Is mass and prestige a penetration game?
Yes, but a different one.

Here’s what you need to understand.
Many brands try to “grow by penetration,” and that’s 100% valid.
But there’s one thing you must keep in mind:

Penetration looks very different across mass, masstige, and prestige.

(1) MASS
You push your product to virtually every category buyer and, over time, they’ll buy.  Price is not a barrier. You’re literally for everyone.

(2) MASSTIGE
Your consumer value segment mix looks fundamentally different from mass brands. You predominantly serve HVC / SHVC (high- and super-high-value consumers) who spend disproportionately in the category. Low- and mid-value consumers may buy you occasionally, but this represents a relatively small profit pool versus HVC / SHVC.  Price is a real barrier, which is why increasing penetration within HVC / SHVC matters most. Lower value tiers are not your primary target.

(3) PRESTIGE
Even narrower than masstige. The contribution of lower-value customers to both the customer base and profit is typically <10%. Trying to grow through “mass penetration” here leads to one outcome: profit dilution.

BOTTOM LINE
Drive penetration.
But know where and when.

🤪 To the 100+ B2B lead gen agencies that reached out to me in the last 30 days…

Quick question:

If your outreach strategy is
• Copy-paste templates
• Fake personalization
• Saw your profile, loved what you’re doing
• And a Calendly link in message #1

…who exactly is teaching you lead generation? 🤔

I’m not interested.
Please stop bothering me.
It's annoying.

But I am curious:

If you run a lead gen agency, what response rate are you actually getting from this approach?

Let’s talk numbers.
Got balls?
Drop them below.

CMOs: Leave the light buyers to whoever can handle them profitably. 
It might not be you.

BIG QUESTION:
Should you focus on light buyers?
The answer: It depends - on your brand. 
And actually the right question to ask is: can YOUR brand, at YOUR price point, with YOUR margin structure, convert and retain them profitably?

That's the question most "reach everybody" strategies never ask.
We work with prestige and masstige brands. Categories where consumers don't just vary in how much they spend, but in how they relate to the category itself. And in these categories, the answer is usually no. 

Here's why.
The case for chasing light buyers often rests on regression to the mean: high spenders in one period will probably spend closer to average in the next. 
Their high spending was partly random, partly timing. 
Don't bet on it.
In high-frequency, low-involvement categories, that logic holds. If you measure who bought the most coffee or toilet paper this week, next week's list will look different.

But value-based segmentation doesn't work on a week. It works on 12 months of category spend. Over that window, much of the noise washes out. What remains is largely structural, an outcome of two behaviours: a. how frequently a consumer enters the category and b. how much they spend per occasion.

High-value consumers do both more. Consistently.
 Some movement between tiers year to year? Of course. But the signal is strong enough and stable enough to act on strategically.

And here's what the regression argument misses entirely: in involvement-driven categories, high-value consumers don't just differ in spend. 
They differ in kind.

In our research, category engagement is a stronger predictor of spend than income alone. High-value consumers aren't just people who can afford more. They're people who care more about the category. They show higher engagement, different channel preferences, different brand expectations, different purchase triggers and preferences. 
That's an attitudinal difference, not a demographic one. 
The gap between a high-value and a low-value consumer isn't just how much they spend. It's how they think about the category and relate to it.

Now look at the other side of the equation.
The argument for reaching light buyers says: there are so many of them, they drive aggregate category value.
Here's the point:
Aggregate category value might not be your brand's value.
Low-value consumers in premium categories don't just buy less often. They show significant price barriers. They're not choosing between your brand and a competitor at the same price point. They're choosing low-priced entry-level products or not buying at all. 

So when you "broaden your reach to capture future demand" from these consumers, here's what actually happens: higher acquisition cost from lower conversion, potentially at a lower margin, with low chance of repeat.

That's not growth. 
That's waste disguised as reach.
Your CFO won't like it.

Big Brands Don’t Lose to Startups. 
They Lose to Inertia.

For decades, Kraft Heinz owned the mac-and-cheese aisle.
– $1B+ in annual sales
– 45% market share in 2022
– Iconic blue box
– Unmatched distribution

When GOODLES entered the shelf, it didn’t look like a threat.
Internal Kraft Heinz reaction?
“Tastes good.”
“Texture could improve.”

→ No urgency.
When the core is throwing off cash, change feels optional and reinvention risky.

Fast forward.
Goodles now holds ~6% share.
Kraft Mac & Cheese is down to 39%.

That’s not a collapse but a drift and this is how market leaders slowly lose categories. Not because they didn’t see the challenger, but because they protected the core while consumer habits were moving.

You can have:
– High mental availability
– Distinctive brand assets
– Category entry-point dominance
– Massive scale

None of it protects you if consumer preferences shift and your strategic focus doesn't.

The Big Learning
Understand consumer preferences and how they evolve. Goodles managed to address a consumer segment that values health, variety and taste and is willing to pay for it. Cheers to that. 


If you're curious how the "How Small Brands Grow Framework" would look like for Goodles → let me know.

𝗖𝗘𝗢𝘀, 𝗖𝗠𝗢𝘀: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗶𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗽𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆. It's picking the right strategy for someone else's brand.

Marketing has a religion problem.
The latest example: the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute recently published a paper showing that small brands grow primarily by gaining new buyers.
Which, to be fair, is a bit like proving you can’t win a football match without scoring goals.

The conclusions:
Pursue mass reach
Build awareness everywhere
Compete for all category buyers

The logic underneath it:
Growth comes either from penetration or loyalty.
Small brands don't win by increasing loyalty.
So they must grow by increasing penetration.
And the most common way to increase penetration is mass reach.

It sounds coherent.
But it quietly assumes something the data itself cannot prove:
that mass reach is the only viable road to penetration.
Why? Because panel can't show how buyers arrived, what marketing actually triggered the purchase, or which growth path a brand deliberately chose.


𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗘𝗕𝗜 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴
Treating mass reach as a universal recipe.

Here’s why.
The paper studied 400 brands across 20 categories.
Instant coffee. Canned fish. Frozen dinners.

High-frequency, low-involvement, offline-dominated categories where physical availability is everything and the product difference between brands is often minimal.
In those categories, mass reach is commercially rational.
The buyer pool is broad.
The category is widely relevant.
And the easiest way to grow penetration is to reach more of the market.

BUT it’s a completely different conversation for:
a masstige skincare brand
a functional beverage
a premium pet food brand
Categories where the buyer pool is structurally smaller, discovery happens online, and early adopters play a disproportionate role in growth.
For those brands, mass reach doesn’t build penetration.
It burns budget.
Across audiences who will never buy, at a cost the brand cannot sustain, in channels where incumbents already dominate shelf space and outspend everyone else.

𝗕𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲
Strategy isn’t religion.
There is no universal playbook.
Mass reach is the right answer for some brands in some categories.
For many growing brands it can be the most expensive way to stay small.

The real question isn’t which framework is correct.
It’s which framework is correct for your brand, in your category, at your stage.

If you want a publication with more flesh on the bone that explains HOW to grow a brand and not what it looks like if you made it, I recommend How Small Brands Grow. Three frameworks. One for start-ups, one for scale-ups, one for mature businesses. Each built around the right priorities at each stage.

Comment "How Small Brands Grow" and I'll share it with you. 
Make sure we're connected.

CEOs, CMOs: Growth is too Slow?
Before You Blame the Market, Check These 9 Patterns 👇 

When growth is slow, we love to blame the market, economy and anyone but ourselves. Truth is: most growth challenges are self inflicted and brands that have been successful for years, quietly go down the drain without understanding the WHY of it. 

Working with dozens of brands over the years we've identified 9 patterns that are typically associated with growth deceleration and that are clear warning signs for any CEO and CMO.

1. Forgetting Brand Identity 
The brand diverges from its original brand identity and dilutes brand appeal, perception and positioning. What once attracted consumers no longer exists.

2. Ignoring the Original Brand Growth Model 
Management changes, ignores the brand's historical growth model and is failing to build upon the algorithm that created growth in the first place.

3. Diluted Consumer Targeting 
The brand drifts too far from its core consumer segments trying to attract secondary audiences, and loses focus on the addressable barriers, drivers and triggers of the people who matter most and drive growth.

4. Fixing Symptoms Instead of Problems 
Management fails to understand the essence of the growth problem and addresses symptoms with tactics instead of fixing root causes. The problem keeps returning in different shades.

5. Lack of Adaptability 
Brands don't adapt their 4Ps to new market challenges, evolved consumer needs, or a changed competitive landscape and gradually lose relevance.

6. Misjudging Scalability and Expandability 
Management lacks a clear view on the scalability of the core, makes the wrong calls on portfolio management and 4P evolution and is overextending where the brand has no right to win.

7. Underinvestment 
Increasing financial pressure reduces brand and marketing investment as well as execution capabilities. Each cut seems manageable. The cumulative damage is not.

8. Lack of Value-Focused Innovation 
A lack of consumer-centred innovation at the intersection of unmet needs and willingness to pay contributes to the brand losing relevance and competitive edge.

9. Ignoring Channel Evolution 
The consumer moves to new channels and the brand doesn't follow. Availability erodes where it matters most.

These nine patterns often go hand in hand. Strategic drift leads to consumer disconnection. Consumer disconnection leads to underinvestment or investment in the wrong places. The root cause typically is a misunderstanding of core consumer segments and how to address the value behind.

The spiral is hard to stop because it requires a ruthless "where do we come from and where do we go" with the needs of key consumer segments at its core. This is the work we do at JK & Associates AG. 

If any of this sounds familiar, it's worth having a conversation.

CMOs: Social commerce is growing 3× faster than Amazon.
The problem is that...


...it is not for everyone.

On paper, it looks like an obvious move.
In practice, most brands quietly fail and blame the platform.

The brands that are successful with social commerce share three things that have nothing to do with budget:

1. They have a product that demonstrates
Social commerce is a visual, real-time medium. Products that explain themselves in 15 seconds e.g. a serum that visibly changes skin texture, a brush that detangles without breaking convert. Products that need a paragraph of context don't. If your best salesperson is a brochure, TikTok Shop will not save you.

2. They have a content engine, not a campaign mentality
The brands winning on TikTok Shop are producing 20–50 creator collaborations a month, treating each one as a test. They are not waiting for the perfect brand video. They are running a volume game with fast feedback loops cutting what doesn't convert, doubling down on what does. Most brand teams are built for quarterly campaigns. That cadence is too slow.

3. They know exactly who their highest-value consumer is 
Mass reach is Amazon's game. Social commerce rewards precision. The brands with the strongest results have a clear picture of their top 20% of buyers e.g. what they watch, who they follow, what problem they're actually solving AND they build their creator brief around that person. 

---

The window is open and the brands building social commerce capability now (the content infrastructure, the creator relationships, the attribution discipline) are building a moat. In two years, the brands that didn't will be paying to catch up.

The question isn't whether social commerce works.
The question is whether your brand is ready for the mechanism.
The full framework will be published soon.

Ultra raised $11M for a nicotine-free pouch and sold 1 million cans in 6 months. The internet is calling it the next ZYN, but there's ONE big difference...

ZYN doesn't have a retention strategy.
It doesn't need one.
It has nicotine.
And nicotine is managing their re-purchase rate.

You don't choose to repurchase, you need to. 
That's not loyalty. 
That's chemistry and addiction. 
And it's the most powerful repeat mechanism in CPG.

Ultra removed it entirely.
Which means every single repurchase has to be earned. 
Through habit. 
Through a product that makes you feel different enough to remember buying it again.
No craving. 
No guilt. 
No trigger. 
Just choice.

That's a completely different business model.

The launch numbers make sense by the way. 
Early buyers are most likely pouch users who want a cleaner product with the same ritual.

The big question is what happens when the novelty is gone, the guilt has faded and nothing neurological is pushing you to buy.
I'd personally love to see their repeat rate.

What do we learn from it?
Start-ups must know their repeat rate before they celebrate because this tells you how suistainable demand really is.

BTW
Repeat is one of the growth pilars of How Small Brands Grow - A Replicable Approach to Start and Scale Brands. To get the full framework comment "oh yes" below and I'll send you the pdf with 10 success cases and a full framework for start-ups, scale-ups and mature businesses.

---

Like that post?
You'll love our newsletter https://lnkd.in/efyXJdge

---

JK & Associates AG focuses on growth strategy and execution for challenger brands.

e.l.f. CEO Tarang Amin put it simply in the earnings call: 
"We want to be disciplined in how we expand."

Everyone covered the $1B Rhode / e.l.f. acquisition 9 months ago. 
Here's what actually matters.

Rhode isn't a celebrity brand riding a deal premium. It's a growth model that keeps accelerating after acquisition which almost never happens.

So what's actually going on?
Rhode didn't grow by doing what most beauty brands do. 
It grew by doing the opposite:

→ ~15 SKUs after 3.5 years. 
Most brands at $360M have 150-200 across multiple categories.

→ DTC-only until unit economics were proven. 
Sephora came after as a scale lever, not a discovery channel.

→ Priced into the masstige sweet spot ($16-$30): prestige efficacy at accessible prices. Not competing on cheap. Not chasing luxury.

That last point is the one the industry keeps missing. 
Circana's full-year 2025 data shows masstige brands grew 14%, outpacing both mass (+5%) and prestige (+4%). The space between mass and prestige isn't a gap. It's the fastest-growing profit pool in beauty.

Rhode didn't stumble into it. 
They started there.

Learning: Start with the profit pool and work up to "where is value concentrating and are we there?

—
Sources: e.l.f. Q3 FY2026 Earnings (Feb 4, 2026) via BoF; Circana Full-Year 2025 via WWD

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