TIME FOR SELLERS TO SIT UP AND SMELL THE BURN

Marketing plans that succeeded for decades are facing markedly changed customer preferences. Many food and beverage companies are already fire-fighting. Others need to adapt to the new realities

- HARISH BIJOOR

HERE is a quiet shiver going down the spine of every global company in the business of selling products and services.

The fear that was once a distant reality is now at the doorstep of many companies selling fast-moving consumer goods, durables and, literally, any company of any kind that has been a market leader for a while now. It is the fear of being overtaken by a new generation of customers who just don’t want to touch what they have been marketing nonchalantly for a while.

What am I talking about? The biggest companies across the globe seem to be showing a thriving bottomline of profit and, at times, even a thriving topline of revenue. But the niggling worry in every boardroom is about being overtaken by a notion. A notion that fast becomes a movement. And a movement that very quickly becomes a part of counterculture. A part of commercial counterculture even, if you may call it that. Something that defines the very existence of the categories, products and the many brands that thrive within them.

Let me exemplify. Let me pick a beverage. Alcohol, for instance. Even as India witnesses a boom in alcohol consumption with the industry hitting a market size of $60 billion in 2024-25, the world is struggling to fight a decline. All of asudden, the young are drinking less and less, even as the old continue with their good old habits. Brands that created legacies of success for themselves in the alco-bev industry are today struggling to reinvent their relevance. Volumes are down, new launches do not meet with success and consumption seems to be threatened. Europe is in the lead in this movement, and the US follows.

Even as the first-generation world of alcohol consumption is struggling, India is on a different trajectory. Out here, growth is just about beginning. Or so it seems. I wouldn’t take too hasty a call on that comment though. I would wait and watch.