The “COVID-19 Effect” caused a unique shift in the economic landscape, forcing many of today’s CPG brands to pivot. While those lessons will eventually be written about, I wanted to share a list of the greatest CPG industry brand pivots of all-time. Sometimes a CPG entrepreneur has a terrible first idea that doesn’t hit the market. Other times they think they have the perfect product and it flops. While others do have a great product, but it’s marketed wrong or positioned in the wrong sector. I’ve been fascinated with business pivots since I read “Lean Startup” almost a decade ago and have applied many of its lessons throughout my consulting career in the CPG industry. Defined in the book, a pivot is a "structured course correction designed to test a new fundamental hypothesis about the product, strategy, and engine of growth." There’s about a dozen or so different types of business pivots in total talked about in the Lean Startup and in this episode I’ll highlight a selection of them by breaking down some of the greatest used by CPG brands. These business pivot stories will include CPG brands such as, Bang Energy, Wrigley Company, Ben & Jerry's, KIND Snacks, and Coca-Cola to name a few.
