HUL’s rural moat is fast shrinking

(1/14)After observing $250M+ in ad spend on @facebook, I’ve noticed that DTC brands that scale very quickly have a few things in common: - High margins & high AOV - Business model is focused on retention - Cross-border activation is simple - Product is a consumable & impulse buy

Big brands are losing share of America’s GDP pie. Small brands are like the phoenix, rising out of their ashes. Birthed by the seeds of low startup costs, infinite digital shelf space, and hyper-targeted advertising, direct-to-consumer companies with strong brand identities and hyper-efficient ad targeting are unbundling big retail brands. Options ... See more

As online-first brands begin saturating the online market, the next phase to unlocking growth will be entering grocery stores. To get into nationwide grocery chains, it’s important to build a compelling sales story based on ‘online data’ to convince buyers that the product would sell.

And then — especially in the business press — because it furthered the narrative that even the hugest of consumer goods companies, long stuck in codependent relationships with the hugest of retailers, would start trying to sell more of their products direct.