Customer-Centric Strategy Formulation

Why ‘Household Penetration’ Might Be Lying to You: In the world of CPG, "Household Penetration" is often the North Star. If your brand is in 35% of homes, you assume you have 65% headroom to grow. But what if that logic is fundamentally flawed? When I took over as CEO of Unilever Philippines, our food business—led by Benjie Yap, uncovered an insight that didn't just change our marketing; it rewrote the global blueprint for how we measure success in some categories. Our data showed Knorr Sinigang (tamarind flavored cubes) had a household penetration of 35%. Traditionally, that suggests massive, untapped potential. However, when we looked at the kitchen diaries of thousands of Filipino families, we realized something startling: Knorr Sinigang had already penetrated 90% of all tamarind soup dishes cooked in the country. In other words, we weren't in 35% of homes—we were in 90% of the relevant moments. If we had continued to push for broad household growth, we would have been shouting at people who didn't cook the dish, wasting millions in "spray and pray" advertising. We pivoted our entire strategy from "who buys" to "what is being cooked." This led us to a new metric: Dish Penetration. By mapping the "unrealized potential" of specific dishes, the "geometry" of our market changed. Instead of broad national campaigns, we shifted to localized micro-marketing. We identified the regions where these specific dishes were staples, used local dialects and influencers, and tailored our promotions to the "pot," not just the "person." Over three years, we increased Chicken Cube dish penetration from 50% to 72%. This insight triggered years of double-digit growth for Knorr and became a global standard for Unilever. Lessons for Every Strategy Leader: 1. Be Sceptical of "Painted Facades": Annual reports and broad metrics often hide the "beams and pillars" of the business. Go into the "kitchens" (or the factories, or the stores) to see the reality. 2. Find the Relevant Moment: Growth isn't always about finding new customers; often, it’s about increasing your share of the moments your current customers already have. In my soon to be launched book “A CEO’s BREW”, I share stories, principles and learnings from across different markets.

🌊 Consumer+ is eating the (enterprise) world. The lines between B2C and B2B are blurring. Here's my thesis on "Consumer Plus", a new breed of companies turning B2C love into B2B gold at unprecedented speed. Remember when consumer and enterprise software lived in parallel universes? - Consumer: Lightning-fast adoption, resistant to paying - Enterprise: Glacial adoption, astronomical budgets Companies had to choose: Build beautiful products nobody would pay for, or build clunky software enterprises would spend millions on. Then something changed... Three massive forces are converging: 1. The New Decision Makers Those teenage Quake players from the 90s? They're now managing partners and CTOs. They don't just want better software – they demand it. Thomas Anderson has become the enterprise buyer. 2. The Gen-Z Factor Unlike millennials who believed everything online should be free, Gen-Z arrives with: - Willingness to pay for value - Native understanding of digital tools - Entrepreneurship as the default career path 3. The AI Accelerant We're witnessing the fastest technology adoption in human history. ChatGPT hit 100M users in 2 months. The gap between consumer and enterprise adoption isn't just shrinking – it's vanishing. Modern companies are following a new playbook that turns consumer love into enterprise gold: 1️⃣ Consumer Launchpad Use consumer platforms as high-definition product labs. Get instant feedback on what works e.g. PhotoRoom didn't start by selling to e-commerce giants. They focused on individual Etsy sellers first, perfecting their product with real users. 2️⃣ Creator/Prosumer Bridge Your users aren't just consumers – they're enterprises-in-waiting. Follow your fastest-growing customers as they scale. 3️⃣ Enterprise Ascent When individuals trust your product with their livelihoods, enterprise adoption follows naturally. You're not selling to enterprises – you're responding to demand from champions inside these organizations. The speed is mind-bending: What took Amazon & NVIDIA 20 years, and Dropbox 10 years, new AI-first companies are accomplishing in 2-3 years. But this is just scratching the surface. I've written a deeper analysis exploring: - Why traditional enterprise barriers are crumbling - How AI is creating "shadow IT" on steroids - The specific playbooks of companies winning this transition - What this means for the future of software Full article here: https://lnkd.in/eMBH5vb5

I went through 50+ briefs from brands like Apple, P&G, and Nike and created a template I now use with my clients. Here’s how it works: THE PROCESS • Schedule a 30-minute briefing call with the client. • Go question by question together. Record the call and take notes. • Ask for all the extra files and links that you need.  • Fill in the missing pieces and get to work. 1️⃣ BACKGROUND • Product: What’s the product and its value proposition? • Pain: What pain point does it solve? • Promise: How will it improve your users’ lives? • Proof: (e.g., results, experience, awards, testimonials, press.) • Purchasing: How and where do people buy the product? ＊＊ 2️⃣ CHALLENGE What's the main problem we're tackling? 💡 Follow this structure: [Business problem] because [customer behavior/belief]. (e.g., Our Gym’s revenue is down because people prefer to work out at home.) ＊＊ 3️⃣ GOALS •Main campaign/project goal: (e.g., get 100 new users) • Desired Action: What do we want people to do as a result of the advertising? • KPIs: How will we measure this? For example: Leads, Clicks, Conversion rate, ROI, Traffic, etc. I. {KPI} II.{KPI} III. {KPI} • Desired Beliefs: What do we want them to think/feel about the brand? I. {KPI} II. {KPI} III. {KPI} ＊＊ 4️⃣ AUDIENCE Who is our ideal customer? • Demographics: (Job, age, sex, income) • Behavior and feelings: (Consumption patterns, attitudes, habits, hobbies, hopes, fears, frustrations, responsibilities, daily schedule) • Where do they hang out? (Influencers to follow, communities, blogs, podcasts) • Stage of Awareness: I. Unaware II. Problem Aware III. Solution Aware IV. Product Aware V. Most Aware ＊＊ 5️⃣ COMPETITION AND MARKET • Alternatives: What will the prospect buy, do, or think if they don’t choose you? • Competition's advantage: What is making the competition successful? • Position: What is the brand’s position in the marketplace? (e.g., underdog, premium, etc.) • Trends: What trends or events make the product relevant right now? • Unique attributes: What features/capabilities do we have that alternatives do not? • Enemy: What or who are you against? ＊＊ 6️⃣ PREVIOUS MARKETING • What's been working so far: • What hasn’t been working: ＊＊ 7️⃣ PRACTICAL • Project Timeline: • Available resources: (e.g., In-house designers, stock photos, and software subscriptions.) • Legal considerations: • Production budget: • Things that must be included: (Taglines, slogans, images, etc.) • Media preferences: Where will they run the ads? ＊＊ 8️⃣ Additional Material Ask for some (or all) of the following materials: • Tone of Voice guidelines • Visual guidelines (fonts, colors, logo) • Links to previous campaigns • An intro to your Head of Sales or a BDR • Pitch decks • Interviews and customer surveys • Testimonials and reviews • PR articles and podcast episodes • User tests • Demo recordings • Relevant articles and publications ＊＊ And that's it! I hope you find it helpful :)

This is how Anthropic decides what to build next—and it's brilliant. Instead of endless spec documents and roadmap debates, the Claude Code team has cracked the code on feature prioritization: prototype first, decide later. Here's their process (shared by Catherine Wu, Product Lead at Anthropic): Step 1: Idea → Prototype Got a feature idea? Skip the spec. Build a working prototype using Claude Code instead. Step 2: Internal Launch Ship that prototype to all Anthropic engineers immediately. No polish required—just functionality. Step 3: Watch & Listen Track usage religiously. Collect feedback actively. Let real behavior, not opinions, guide decisions. Step 4: Data-Driven Prioritization - High usage + positive feedback → roadmap priority - Low engagement or complaints → back to iteration This "prototype-first product shaping" flips traditional product development on its head. Instead of guessing what users want, they're measuring what users actually use. The beauty? They're dogfooding their own tool to build their own tool. The feedback loop is immediate, honest, and impossible to ignore. The takeaway: Your best product decisions come from real user behavior, not theoretical frameworks. Sometimes the fastest way to validate an idea isn't a survey or interview—it's a working prototype.

"We're moving forward with another vendor." Every rep's nightmare sentence. I pressed for details. "Their approach felt more open. We actually knew what we were buying into." That stung. I'd shared: ••• Exhaustive feature documentation ••• Dozens of success stories   ••• Complete pricing breakdowns Where'd I go wrong? Days later, I got access to our competitor's sales process. The difference hit instantly: They didn't preach transparency. They lived it. Their follow-up wasn't an email avalanche. It was one collaborative hub where buyers could: ••• Monitor which stakeholders engaged with what ••• See their exact position in the evaluation journey ••• Find materials curated for their unique pain points ••• Manage internal distribution seamlessly My revelation: I was buried in PDFs. They were cultivating partnership. Next prospect, new approach: I built a shared workspace exposing EVERYTHING: → Which team members on our side viewed their data → Critical docs they'd missed → Realistic implementation expectations → Where we excel AND where we don't The buyer's response: "Finally, someone not playing games." Ink on paper in 10 days. Here's what's real: Today's buyers aren't starved for data. They're starved for authenticity. Yesterday's strategy: Bombard with polished assets that sidestep weaknesses. Tomorrow's strategy: Build transparent environments that tackle doubts directly. Your buyers know when something's off. Even when nothing is. Quit running sales like a shell game. Start running it like a glass house. You with me?