cpgbrands

AI strategy for food and beverage brands: hire a night shift, keep the day shift

An AI strategy for food and beverage brands is a staffing plan. Give AI the night shift: research, first drafts, file prep and reports that can run while you sleep. Keep people on the day shift: tasting, approving, answering customers and signing off on claims. In 2025, 88 percent of companies used AI somewhere. About 6 percent saw big returns.

AI strategy for food and beverage brands: hire a night shift, keep the day shift

Social media strategy for clean-label food and beverage brands after the claim goes generic

A social media strategy for clean-label food and beverage brands has to work after the claim stops being yours. In February 2026 the FDA let any product without petroleum dyes say "no artificial colors." Big food is reformulating to match. So the feed has to prove who makes it, where it comes from and why.

Social media strategy for clean-label food and beverage brands after the claim goes generic

AI content strategy for CPG food and beverage brands: make it so nobody can tell

An AI content strategy for CPG food and beverage brands is a production plan with one pass or fail test: nobody scrolling past can tell a machine made it. Coca-Cola had five specialists sort 70,000 AI clips for its 2025 holiday ad, and people still caught the glitchy truck wheels. Volume is the easy part. The test is the strategy.

AI content strategy for CPG food and beverage brands: make it so nobody can tell

Before you hire a CPG creative agency, write the rulebook it has to follow

A CPG creative agency can only make your brand look like itself if someone wrote down what itself means. Most food and beverage founders skip that step, and the 2021 BetterBriefs study of more than 1,700 marketers and agency staff found 80% of marketers rate their briefs good while only 10% of agencies agree. Write the rulebook, then hire.

Before you hire a CPG creative agency, write the rulebook it has to follow

Drinks marketing agency: hire the one that sells your distributor rep first

A drinks marketing agency earns its fee when the distributor rep carrying your brand, plus 50 to 200 others, can sell it in a minute and the depletion report shows shoppers bought it. Google's top result for this search on October 26, 2026 mentions the distributor side in one sentence. That's the job I'd hire for first.

Drinks marketing agency: hire the one that sells your distributor rep first

Beverage marketing company: Google's top answer sells data, so here's which kind you actually need

A beverage marketing company can be four different businesses: a data firm selling market reports, a promotional outfit running wine and spirits tastings, a development house that formulates and launches drinks, or an agency that builds your social and content. Google's top result is a research firm founded in 1972. Hire by the problem you have.

Beverage marketing company: Google's top answer sells data, so here's which kind you actually need

Beverage branding agency: the best drink brand I ever worked on never got a rebrand

A beverage branding agency builds the positioning, name, identity and packaging a drink sells under. Hire one when the brand is broken: shoppers can't tell what's in the can, the label dies in a cold case, or you're moving into a new category. If the label already works, spend the money putting the drink in people's hands.

Beverage branding agency: the best drink brand I ever worked on never got a rebrand

Social media marketing for food brands: Google's top answer was written for a salsa stand

Social media marketing for food brands is the work of getting a stranger to recognize your product, trust the people who make it and pick it up on a shelf they're already walking past. Once you're in stores, every post has to do what a farmers market table does in person, without you standing behind it.

Social media marketing for food brands: Google's top answer was written for a salsa stand

CPG social media: Google's top answer grades five brands, and four parent companies own all of them

CPG social media is how consumer packaged goods brands use Instagram, TikTok and YouTube to get found, picked off the shelf and bought again. Google's top answer for it grades five brands owned by four of the biggest companies in the business. An independent food or beverage brand needs a different scorecard, one built on strangers reached and units sold.

CPG social media: Google's top answer grades five brands, and four parent companies own all of them

CPG marketing companies: four of the five rankings on page one put their own author first

CPG marketing companies are the agencies, consultants and specialist shops that plan and run marketing for consumer packaged goods brands, from strategy and social to retail media, packaging and launches. Before you trust any ranked list of them, check who published it. On Google's first page today, four of five rankings put their author first.

CPG marketing companies: four of the five rankings on page one put their own author first

Food marketing consultant: you asked for one person and Google handed you a holding company

A food marketing consultant is one senior person you hire to make the marketing decisions for a food or beverage brand and, usually, to run some of the work. You pay for judgment by the hour, by the project or on a monthly retainer, and you should know within 90 days whether it's working.

Food marketing consultant: you asked for one person and Google handed you a holding company

Food and beverage branding agency: a chip bag and a cold can don't sell the same way

A food and beverage branding agency builds the strategy, identity, packaging and voice a food or drink product sells under. Before you hire one, make it prove it knows the difference between the two. A snack gets chosen in the aisle and eaten at home. A drink gets grabbed from a cooler and photographed in somebody's hand.

Food and beverage branding agency: a chip bag and a cold can don't sell the same way

CPG branding agency: ask if the brand survives post number 15

A CPG branding agency builds the identity a packaged food or beverage product sells under: the positioning, the voice, the visual system and the packaging. Before you hire one, ask how the brand holds up at post number 15 in a month. A brand that only works on the carton runs out of things to say by week three.

CPG branding agency: ask if the brand survives post number 15

CPG brand agency: hire the one that asks where people buy it

A CPG brand agency builds the identity a packaged food or beverage product sells under: the positioning, the voice, the look, the packaging and the rules for using all of it. Hire the one that asks where your customer actually buys the product before it designs anything, because attention that can't find a checkout is wasted money.

CPG brand agency: hire the one that asks where people buy it

Food branding agency: ask what happens the week after the brand book ships

A food branding agency builds the identity your product sells under: the positioning, the name if you need one, the logo, the packaging system and the rules for using all of it. Hire the one that tests that identity on a phone screen and a crowded shelf before you approve a single logo file.

Food branding agency: ask what happens the week after the brand book ships

Food marketing agency: find out who works your account on a Tuesday

A food marketing agency plans, makes and places the marketing for a food brand: strategy, branding, content, social, PR and retail support. Before you hire one, find out who does your work every week, which service you're buying first, and what the retainer covers. The logo on the pitch deck doesn't post your content.

Food marketing agency: find out who works your account on a Tuesday

Food and beverage marketing agency case studies: how to read the numbers before you sign

A food and beverage marketing agency sells strategy, creative, media and content to brands that make food or drinks, and it proves itself with case-study numbers. Before you hire one, ask four things about every number: what the baseline was, how long the window ran, what else changed, and which part of the lift the agency did.

Food and beverage marketing agency case studies: how to read the numbers before you sign

CPG marketing agency: how to vet one when the pitch shows up in the comments

Hiring a CPG marketing agency? The #1 Google result is a Reddit thread full of agency pitches. The five agency lanes, 2026 costs and a 5-step pitch check.

CPG marketing agency: how to vet one when the pitch shows up in the comments

Content creation for better-for-you snack brands: sell the bite before the benefit

Content creation for better-for-you snack brands works when the first second of every post sells the bite. Show the crunch, the snap, the sour face, with the sound on. Put the protein, the fiber and the short ingredient list in the second beat, as the reason to buy again. Lead with the claim and shoppers file you under diet food.

Content creation for better-for-you snack brands: sell the bite before the benefit