When Sainsbury’s raised its full-year profit outlook last month, citing stronger grocery sales and improved value perception, it was a reminder that momentum wins. In a cost of living market where habits are fragile and shoppers are more selective than ever, the brands that keep moving are the brands that keep selling.
While shopping behaviour has transformed, from “snap to search” to social-fuelled discovery, many fmcg marketers are still clinging to models built for a linear world. Funnels might work neatly in decks, but they don’t reflect how people buy. Real behaviour is messy, emotional and constantly interrupted. Shoppers flip between exploration and evaluation, nudged by culture one moment and convenience the next.
The reality is brutal: of the 30,000-plus new consumer products launched globally each year, up to 80% fail to gain traction. Kantar’s Brand Footprint shows only around 43% of fmcg brands manage to grow year on year. With odds like that, simply driving more reach or squeezing CPMs isn’t enough. Efficiency won’t rescue a brand that has lost its relevance.
What separates the winners from the rest is the energy they create – the spark that makes a brand feel meaningful, timely and worth choosing. That emotional edge is what drives momentum.
Momentum fades fast
Consider the emotional pull behind L’Oréal, still one of the UK’s most talked-about beauty brands at 115 years old, or Babybel, which turned itself into the “cheese of champions” during the World Cup and brought in over 250,000 new buyers. Fame helps, of course. But it’s the feeling these brands create, not media spend, that powers their momentum.
Shoppers don’t enter stores as blank slates. Most already carry a mental shortlist shaped by everything they’ve seen, felt and stored away unconsciously. Professor John Dawes’ 95:5 rule makes the point: only 5% of buyers are in-market at any one time, but the other 95% are quietly forming their preferences long before they reach the aisle.
This is where real-world examples become instructive. Pepsi AM, the breakfast cola nobody asked for, failed not because of lack of advertising but because it wasn’t rooted in a genuine behaviour or moment. Lucozade Energy, on the other hand, has built its edge around the 3pm slump, owning a simple human truth that shoppers instantly recognise.
And the challenge doesn’t end at purchase. Fmcg is a repertoire market, even loyal customers only pick you about half the time. Growth depends on how brands meet people in their world, not how many messages they push out. Prime is the cautionary tale here: once the viral drink dominating the news cycle, it saw UK value sales drop by around 70% year on year as the hype faded.
Momentum fades fast when there’s no substance behind it.
The real issue is that the industry remains stuck on funnel logic, obsessing over linear journeys in a world that simply doesn’t behave that way. Funnels explain visibility. They do not explain vitality. As Mark Ritson notes, you can customise your funnel all you want, but it still won’t show you why people move or where they fall away.
This is where momentum thinking becomes essential. Brands don’t just need to reach people: they need to understand how people move, feel and re-enter the brand’s world.
Because in a market where shoppers have more choice and less patience, momentum isn’t marketing jargon. It’s survival. Funnels might be tidy, but flow is real. And in today’s retail reality, only one of those keeps your brand moving.
Kimberley Upton, head of effectiveness, Zeal
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