Discounting is the easiest lever to pull and the hardest habit to break. It moves volume this week and trains shoppers to wait for the next deal. The brands that win the fixture over time tend to do something harder: they become genuinely easy to recognise and hard to forget.
Mental and physical availability
Being chosen starts long before the aisle. The brands that come to mind first, and are easy to spot once you’re there, get picked more often, more cheaply. That’s the quiet compounding return on distinctiveness.
Build assets, not just ads
Distinctive brand assets, colour, shape, character, tone, are the shortcuts shoppers use to find you at speed. Treated consistently, they do the heavy lifting that price promotions can only rent.
Where to start
Audit what’s genuinely yours, commit to it across every touchpoint, and resist the urge to refresh it just because you’re bored of it. The shopper isn’t.