While we may (hopefully) be through the worst of times with one virus, there is another virus sweeping through everywhere from supermarkets to health & beauty retailers, and it is affecting everybody.

That's right - Inflation. 📈

Many of the largest Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies announced significant price increases this year. It’s likely that rising production costs will lead to further price increases this year, making these products less and less affordable for consumers, as their salaries remain stagnant in comparison to this inflation. 

While sales have generally grown in value, due to the increases in price, sales volume has been (expectedly) dropping. Although prices are increasing across the board, including private label products, these brand-switching consumers are more than likely switching to cheaper alternatives. 

Is this just a prime opportunity for private label brands to take advantage, and gain even more share of consumer wallet?

Will CPG brands be able to win back consumers once the inflation crisis is over?

How will they know which consumers to target?

Time will tell, but if CPGs want to strategically overcome this challenge and subsequently bounce back from it, consumer-level insights are going to be key. Detailed insights can tell the story of how individual consumer archetypes are experiencing this crisis, what their sentiment is at the moment, and going forward, and why they are engaging in certain behaviours, as evidenced by their shopping data across the market. Brands will need to be able to then directly action those insights to drive results. 

The problem is, that consumer-level insight is disjointed and undemocratic for CPG brands. The nature of their products and the way they are distributed means that any consumer insights they have are a fraction of the entire consumer spending picture, leaving out important details from other channels, including online and offline channels, as well as product-level insight to understand what exactly they are buying, where, and how much they are paying for it. 

ProMotion Intelligence is revolutionising the way brands access and make use of consumer-level insights. We gather zero-party consumer insights from across online and offline retail channels, from consumers, in exchange for rewards. We understand not only the product-level insight of each consumer transaction, but also the demographic, psychographic and even sentiment analysis behind it, as we pair observed data with qualitative analysis. We can then use this information to target consumers based on their observed shopping behaviours, and make your marketing budget go further, bringing a direct return on investment.

To learn more about how your brand can reach consumers during the inflation crisis we’re living in, and make shopper marketing budgets stretch further, get in touch with our helpful team today.