Translating data into insights fast is right at the heart of modern food and drink marketing. And with the right tech-enabled strategy, it’s easier than ever to leave underperforming promotions behind for campaigns that cut through every time.
The modern grocery aisle moves fast, but the data behind it often moves at a crawl.
For UK food and drink brands navigating volatile input costs, shifting retailer loyalties, and intense volume pressures, trade promotion is the single largest lever for driving growth. Yet, for many marketing and commercial teams, it is also the most significant drain on time.
With industry data showing that up to 70% of fmcg promotions fail to break even, the financial stakes are incredibly high. Despite this, trade marketers find themselves trapped in a constant cycle of manual data extraction – logging into retailer portals, downloading spreadsheets, cleaning data, stitching it together. Only then can insights actually be put into action.
By the time a promotion’s true ROI is calculated, the window to optimise the campaign has already passed.
The core bottleneck here is not a lack of data; it is the speed to insights. When underperforming trade spend erodes margins day by day, traditional, legacy trade promotion management (TPM) software leaves brands behind the eight ball.
Moving from reactive analysis to proactive strategy
When teams are stuck in spreadsheet grids, they cannot observe the bigger picture. Artificial intelligence is changing this, however. Embracing automated, intelligent systems is no longer a futuristic concept – it is a rapidly accelerating industry standard. Recent data reveals that 71% of consumer packaged goods (CPG) leaders have now adopted AI in at least one business function, a massive leap from 42% reported in 2024. Furthermore, 56% of CPG leaders are now regularly using generative AI within their organisations.
By integrating Large Language Models (LLMs) and generative AI into their existing processes, trade marketers can move away from rigid dashboards and treat promotional datasets as active strategic partners. This technology allows commercial teams to query data using natural language, effectively holding a conversation with their promotional history.
During a planning cycle, a marketer can bypass weeks of post-event analysis by asking the AI direct questions. They can instantly identify which promotions drive the most incremental revenue to isolate true volume drivers, review their most frequently run campaigns to avoid repetitive mechanics, or track which brands are trending up or down.
Empowering teams with Conversational AI
Now, the FMCG industry is turning toward conversational, AI-native platforms faster than ever before, allowing brands to move from insights to execution in seconds. TELUS TPM with AI Assistant revolutionises how commercial and marketing teams interact with grocery data, directly targeting the friction points where time and revenue are routinely lost.
- Maximise retail trade spend impact: The AI-driven platform captures hidden growth by surfacing profitable trends and execution gaps across retail channels. This gives marketing teams the clarity needed to optimise ROI and ensure every pound of investment works toward volume and value targets.
- Eliminate the manual grind: By handling the heavy lifting of data processing within daily workflows, the AI Assistant frees food and drink marketers from spreadsheet formulas, allowing them to focus on creative strategy and retailer relationships.
- Scale team expertise: The platform’s intelligence layer natively understands the nuances of fmcg data and grocery trade promotion. This enables every team member – from junior brand managers to senior commercial directors – to make expert-level, data-backed decisions.
- Enterprise-grade AI data security: Operating within a safe and secure environment, the system protects and never stores proprietary brand data, helping teams clear IT governance hurdles quickly to move into production with peace of mind.
As the grocery landscape grows more competitive, automated efficiency has become a vital necessity. Food and drink manufacturers who move away from manual administration and invest in comprehensive, AI-native trade promotion solutions today will be the ones best positioned to protect their margins, satisfy retail partners and capture growth opportunities that others miss.
Find out how to make TELUS TPM work for your team.
About TELUS Agriculture & Consumer Goods
TELUS serves 15 of the top 20 CPG companies globally with over 25 years of fmcg expertise across more than 300 customers in 70 countries. We are committed to expanding our integrated software ecosystem, delivering standard-setting Trade Promotion Management, Retail Execution, and Revenue Growth Management solutions that empower global brands to plan to profit on a single, secure, platform.
