Category strategy, brand architecture and on ground activation, from someone who spent twelve years carrying a brand P&L rather than advising on one.
Four sentences a client tends to hear in the first meeting. They are not a manifesto, they are how the work starts.
Before we touch positioning we find out whether the product is reaching the shopper at all.
That is a media brief in strategy clothing. We start by testing whether the question is right.
If the salesman has no reason to push it once the scheme stops, it will not happen.
What is structurally true about a category outlasts what is fashionable in it.
Six lines, one discipline. Strategy and execution sit under one roof, which is why the plan tends to survive contact with the market.
Category diagnosis, positioning, portfolio architecture and annual planning.
Identity, naming, pack and claim architecture that survives the shelf.
Experiential work built around an occasion the brand can credibly own.
Trial programmes planned, staffed and run. Delhi and Mumbai at present.
Structures that stretch a budget that is not going to grow.
Content built on a category truth rather than a content calendar.
The diagnosis is the product. Everything after it is execution, and execution is only worth buying once the diagnosis is right.
Category, shopper and trade. Where the constraint actually sits.
One diagnosis, and the plan that follows from it.
Ideas built to survive contact with distribution.
On ground and digital, run to a standard.
Measure, learn, and scale what worked.
Deepest in skincare and personal care, where the last four years were spent running a national portfolio.
Twelve years inside the companies that set the standard in Indian FMCG, most recently as Group Brand Manager on the BoroPlus portfolio at Emami.
Fifty percent on commissioning, balance on delivery. Fees quoted per engagement. GST as applicable.
A written diagnosis and a plan you can act on with or without us. Most relationships start here.
Architecture, launch planning, a sampling programme, a campaign platform. Defined output, defined end date.
Senior strategy inside your team for a pitch or a planning cycle. Used mostly by agencies.
Brand Strata was founded this year. The judgement inside it was built over twelve, on brands that had to deliver a number every quarter.
The person in the room is the person doing the work. Nothing is passed to a junior team after the pitch.
We have already run the category, the launch and the trade conversation. That time is not billed to you.
Decisions happen in one conversation, which is usually the difference between six weeks and six months.
A short conversation is usually enough to tell whether the problem is one we can help with, and we will say so if it is not.
Start a conversation