A point of view for CPG & retail brands

The Lost Consumer

Retailers own the checkout, so most brands never learn who actually bought them, why, or whether they came back. A brand becomes more valuable when it knows, understands and stays close to the people who choose it.

Book a baseline conversation Read the thesis

3–5%net-sales growth from data-driven CPG marketing at scale (McKinsey)¹⁰

10–20%better marketing efficiency from the same capability (McKinsey)¹⁰

+40%ROAS when a food company targeted look-alikes of its best consumers¹⁰

5×market penetration for meaningfully differentiated brands (Kantar)¹¹

37%of consumers tried a new brand in the prior three months¹⁸

61%say price matters more than it did two years ago¹⁹

Industry capability estimates and cross-brand associations, not forecasts for any single brand. ROAS is not margin.

The Challenger thesis

A brand is worth more when it knows its consumers.

Retailers see the transaction. Platforms limit what brands can see. Household panels estimate patterns anonymously. What almost no mid-market brand has is a persistent, permissioned relationship that lets it ask the buyer why, respond to them, and link that feedback to what they buy next.

A contact list is not the asset. The asset is a relationship that proves who buys, why they stay, and what brings them back.

That relationship helps a brand understand preference and friction, recruit more light buyers, lift repeat purchase, and make better campaign, trade, service and innovation decisions. Its value compounds when those decisions produce incremental contribution, and it becomes evidence a future acquirer can inspect.

And the shelf is getting harder to hold. Disruptor brands captured 11% of frozen-food category growth over five years.¹⁸ Shoppers are switching more and weighing price harder. Brands that cannot see their buyers cannot defend them.

The ten questions

Store volume alone cannot answer the questions that drive growth.

Ask your team how many of these you can answer today, with evidence.

Who bought our brand, and who gave permission to hear from us?
Which verified buyers came back a second and third time, by product and retailer?
Why do repeat buyers choose us over the other product on the shelf?
What new flavor, format or occasion are actual buyers asking us to create next?
Where are loyal buyers asking us to stock the product so they can buy it again?
Which known buyers could not find it, and did an availability alert bring them back?
Which campaign message changed purchases among buyers and category prospects, beyond clicks?
Which promotion created new or repeat purchases instead of discounting ones that would happen anyway?
Which service problems were resolved, and did those households buy again?
Which needs shared by existing buyers predict the next group of households we could win?

The evidence ladder

Every step is a different claim.

A signup is not loyalty, and a receipt is one observed purchase. The strongest proof pairs direct data with retailer or panel evidence and controlled tests.

Contact

An email or a follower. Useful, but proves nothing.

Known, permissioned person

Identity plus purpose-specific permission to keep a useful relationship.

Verified buyer

A receipt or authorized transaction links a person, product, place and time.

Observed repeat buyer

Repeat buying over a fair window, with evidence of preference and access.

Incremental contribution

Purchases caused by the relationship, measured against a holdout group.

THE KNOWN CONSUMER

Illustrative annual economics · one buyer

Base purchases 12 × $3$36.00

Exists even if the buyer stays anonymous

Incremental 4 × $3$12.00

Only purchases caused by better engagement, vs. a control

Program cost−$5.00

NET VALUE OF KNOWING$7.00

× 10,000 comparable buyers$70,000

Contribution after product, channel & trade costs.
Not a forecast. Not lifetime value.
Not the sale value of personal data.

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Who is already doing it

Leading CPG brands turn the pack and the receipt into a direct relationship.

Brand	How consumers connect	Published result
Kellanova	Loyalty program combined with other data for analytics	33M loyalty-program households¹
Pringles	QR-coded packs open personalized, exclusive content	+30% first-party data²
Special K UK	Clean-room analysis of 20M+ records to target personalized audiences	9–36% sales lift; penetration decline reversed²
General Mills Box Tops	Shoppers scan receipts or link a retailer account to support schools	217K+ monthly active users; school earnings +19% YoY¹³
Coca-Cola	Connected packs and the Coke On app in Japan	200+ connected packs in 40+ markets; 50M+ app downloads¹⁴
Nestlé	First-party records personalize marketing across brands	340M+ first-party records¹⁵
PepsiCo / Poppi	Acquisition rationale cited strong engagement and a loyal community	No standalone value disclosed⁶

The pattern: earn a direct interaction, keep a permissioned profile, and test what changes purchases.

Company-reported results of different kinds (audience scale, channel, campaign outcome, acquisition rationale). They cannot be averaged into a benchmark. Special K is a UK pilot.

Where does your brand sit?

Enterprise value comes from pairing consumer closeness with proven profitable growth.

Profitable growth →

Momentum, unexplained

Growing, but the drivers are not understood or repeatable.

Evidence-backed growth

Consumer evidence, better investment decisions and documented room to expand.

Flying blind

Little evidence on demand drivers. Investment rests on intuition.

Engaged, not yet profitable

A knowledgeable audience whose insight has not become profitable growth.

Consumer closeness →

How we measure it

Closeness

Reachable, permissioned buyers; purchase-history coverage; research participation; time to answer a commercial question.

Profitable growth

Incremental buyers; household penetration; repeat in a fixed window; units per store per week; contribution after trade.

Brand value

Measured preference, differentiation, willingness to pay and lower dependence on discounting.

Growth needs new buyers

In ten growing packaged-goods brands, penetration grew far more than loyalty.²¹ Protect your fans, then use what they reveal to recruit many more light buyers.

Agilidy's analytical framework, not a published industry index. Store volume alone does not place a brand on either axis.

Earning permission

Six everyday needs give buyers a reason to identify themselves and come back.

Consumers do not hand over data for nothing. They do it when the brand is useful. Start by checking your own store locator: what happens when a search returns no results?

Where can I buy this?

Store locator with "Can't find it? Request your store."

You learn: unmet demand by ZIP and retailer

Help me with this product.

One service channel with a single case history.

You learn: recurring quality and availability issues

Make it easier to use.

Pack QR code to how-tos, recipes and saved preferences.

You learn: occasions and preferred formats

Recognize that I buy your brand.

Receipt-linked trial and repeat rewards.

You learn: verified first and repeat purchases

Let me help shape the brand.

A small advisory community, polls and early previews.

You learn: reasons for loyalty, objections, reactions to change

Tell me when it's relevant.

Follow-up based on permission, timing and availability.

You learn: which interventions drive another purchase

The Known Consumer Growth System

Know the consumer. Hear the consumer. Help the consumer.

Agilidy works alongside your creative and marketing agency, not instead of it. Your agency keeps brand voice and creative. We add the permissioned data foundation, AI-assisted consumer experience and closed-loop measurement that make that work compound.

Know

Build the consumer data platform

Unify identity, consent, service history, store requests and verified purchases into profiles your brand owns. The platform is the bank; permissioned consumer data is the currency.

Agilidy builds it. Your agency uses aggregated, permissioned insight for creative and shopper programs.

Hear

Listen and engage across social

Map what is monitored today across comments, mentions, DMs and creators. Agree response ownership, escalation and a listening taxonomy.

Your agency leads channel voice. Agilidy links permitted signals to profiles, service outcomes and demand.

Help

Launch an "Ask the Brand" website agent

Help shoppers find, prepare and enjoy products, request a store and get support, with a human route for quality issues. Every site visit becomes a chance to listen.

Your agency defines character and voice. Agilidy builds knowledge, handoff, consent and measurement.

Your brandOwns the consumer relationship and every decision

Your agencyBrand, creative, social and shopper expertise

AgilidyProfile, AI engagement and measurement

Before the next big bet

$100K

The celebrity spot. The retailer promo. The line extension. Without consumer evidence, each call rests on judgment, and every later choice of message, audience and promotion faces the same gap.

What consumer intelligence answers before you spend

Who buys today. Which current buyers, where, and how often.
Why they choose you. Reasons for preference over the competitor next to you on the shelf.
Who switches. Where buyers come from, and what pulls them away.
Which message lands. Rapid concept tests with actual buyers and category prospects.
What changes purchases. Holdout comparison of verified purchases, not clicks.

Evidence improves the decision. It cannot guarantee the campaign's return.

The first build

One complete journey, from "can't find it" to an observed repeat purchase.

Selected products, one defined market, tested against a comparison group.

01Find itLocator search

02Request itStore and product request

03NotifyAlert once stock is confirmed

04VerifyReceipt confirms purchase

05LearnShort follow-up on the product

06RepeatNext observed purchase

Baseline

Existing audience and permissions, site volumes, accessible distribution and purchase data, and real contribution economics.

Instrument

Capture every step of the journey, with service interactions in the same consumer history from day one.

Test

Compare added follow-up against a comparison group over at least one realistic repeat-purchase cycle.

A small pilot proves the workflow before it can prove financial lift. Expand only after consumer usefulness, reliable capture and credible economics are shown.

30 · 90 · 180

Build the consumer asset in three stages.

DAYS 1–30

Discover

Map creative, social, website, shopper and reporting workflows against consumer data and retail signals
Agree decision rights, data access, brand voice, escalation and success metrics
Baseline known buyers, response times, repeat proxy and unanswered questions

OUTCOMEOne product and market selected for the pilot

DAYS 31–90

Launch the three loops

Stand up a usable consumer profile and consent store
Run the agreed social listening and response playbook
Co-design a limited website agent for help, store requests and feedback

OUTCOMECreative and journeys tested against verified buying

DAYS 91–180

Close the learning loop

Regular insight brief on buyer needs, creative response and local demand
Connect permitted signals to verified purchases and retailer availability
Controlled tests on repeat, conversion and incremental contribution

OUTCOMEBest journeys scaled; shared dashboard and a brand-owned playbook

For founders, boards and PE sponsors

An acquirer inherits an operating capability, not a list of names.

Reachable audience

Clear permission history and documented rights to use the data.

Purchase cohorts

Who buys again, when, where, and how dependent on incentives.

Tested brand promise

The promises and experiences loyal consumers value most.

Proven playbooks

Repeatable campaigns and service processes with measured contribution.

Demand map

Geographic evidence that supports further distribution.

Feedback system

A live way to evaluate brand changes after the acquisition.

Precedent

PepsiCo acquires Poppi, 2025

PepsiCo cited Poppi's strong consumer engagement and loyal community in its acquisition rationale.⁶

Cautionary tale

Campbell and Garden Fresh, 2015–2019

Campbell bought Garden Fresh for $231M in 2015 and sold it in 2019 after citing customer and distribution losses, missed expansion goals and integration problems. We can't prove an absent consumer relationship caused it. We can ask whether a reachable base of known fans would have caught the people who could no longer find or recognize the product.

No reviewed disclosure supports a standard price per contact or a promised exit-multiple uplift. A buyer reflects the capability in its cash-flow forecast and risk assessment; don't count buyer lifetime value into enterprise value twice.

Why Agilidy

We own the consumer outcome with you.

Agilidy is the Microsoft partner that runs on agents, not headcount. We bring 25 years in the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem and B2B revenue leadership to one job: turning anonymous volume into known, profitable demand.

We design the permissioned profile on Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, build the AI-assisted consumer experience, and stand up closed-loop measurement. Your agency keeps creative. Your brand keeps the relationship and the data.

Proof it works on this stack

100,000

Campari Group · Aperol Spritz

Aperol invited consumers to upload bar receipts. AI verified them, while Dynamics 365 Customer Insights built richer profiles and personalized journeys.²⁴ Connect the purchase to the person.

Campaign scale, not a count of unique known consumers. Microsoft reports higher engagement but no dollar value per consumer.

The question worth testing

What is one known consumer worth to your brand?

We establish the answer from verified purchases, incremental contribution and the decisions consumer knowledge changes. The first step is a baseline audit and one pilot journey in one market.

Book a baseline conversation Revisit the ten questions

Sources

Kellanova, Three data-driven strategies to grow your brand, Oct 2023
Kellanova, Trend & Data-Driven Campaigns for Every Audience, Apr 2025
PepsiCo, PepsiCo completes acquisition of Poppi, May 19, 2025
McKinsey, The new marketing model for growth: How CPGs can crack the code, Sep 2021
Kantar, Analysis of 6.5 Billion Consumer Datapoints Reveals the Three Rules of Brand Growth
General Mills, Box Tops for Education celebrates Teacher Appreciation Month, 2025
The Coca-Cola Company, Q1 2024 results
Nestlé, AI-powered digital twins for brands, Jun 2025
McKinsey, State of the Consumer 2026, Jun 2026
McKinsey, What CPG companies can learn from disruptor brands, Jan 2026
McKinsey, State of Food and Beverage, Apr 2026
Dawes, Brand growth in packaged goods markets: Ten cases with common patterns, J. of Consumer Behaviour, 2016
Microsoft, Campari Group personalizes customer experiences with Dynamics 365, May 2022