Creating a Compelling Category Vision

What is it?

• A Category Vision describes how the Category will grow in value & volume in the future and the change in purchase habits. It creates a “Strategic Agenda for Growth”.
• What is to be done to capture the value potential over three years by the key customer or the environment.
• And how a CPG’s portfolio will be used to unlock the headroom for growth.

Size of the Prize

An excellent Category Vision should have at its heart an understanding of the potential size of the prize, with strategies and tactics to deliver this.

It is a statement of our desired future state, incorporating learnings from the past and predictions of the upcoming trends that will affect the Category.

It identifies and quantifies the strategic category growth drivers for future category growth.

The vision includes tactics for the point of purchase and shopper marketing.

The vision ensures the Shopper, customer and supplier are aligned to maximize category growth and sales opportunities and is underpinned by consumer and shopper research which delivers valuable insight for the customer and CPG.

The existence of a vision underlines our role as thought leaders both internally and with trade partners and gives us “Permission to Play”.

Capturing Behaviours

The category vision has to inspire whilst being realistic. The objective is to encourage the Shopper to buy more, increase their purchase frequency, or get more shoppers to buy the Category.

We set out to create a clear understanding of the Category and then combine our initial findings with a robust analysis of trends to understand the Category’s role in the future.

A category vision has to deliver for today as well as be relevant for tomorrow. With a 3 – 5 years window, the plan must capture a comprehensive range of behaviours pertinent for the 3 – 5-year duration.

It’s a collaborative process

It won’t surprise that creating, activating and delivering a category vision should be a collaborative process between consumers, shoppers, customers and CPG manufacturers.

With over 20 years of experience in category vision development, Big River Solutions is idealized to steer all parties through the process.

We aim to simplify and drive a complex process through to delivery. We create a vision to challenge what’s been done before.

Why do we need one?

It helps us define a strategic growth plan internally and externally with our customers by identifying:

• Where to Play
• How to Win
• What to do.