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Pernod Ricard launches higher-ABV Malibu RTDs in the UK and US, Nestlé commits $1bn to Mexico, and Unreal Snacks courts fashion for brand heat.
Pernod Ricard is stretching Malibu into stronger RTDs, Nestlé is pouring $1 billion into Mexico through 2030, and a challenger snack brand is using fashion collabs to outmanoeuvre FMCG giants. Three moves with real strategic stakes.
In this episode:
The FMCG Marketing Daily is a concise briefing for FMCG and CPG marketers, brand managers and CMOs, hosted by Marco & Klara. New episode every day.
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Also from Marco & Klara: The Digital Commerce Daily · The Health Marketing Daily
The essential morning briefing for brand leaders in fast-moving consumer goods. Hosted by Marco and Klara — two senior strategists with decades of experience inside global CPG companies and consultancies. Every episode covers retail media and distribution shifts, brand and competitor moves from Unilever, Coke, Nestlé, and challenger brands, and the macro and regulatory forces reshaping the category. Authoritative. Analytical. No noise. Built for brand managers, trade marketers, CMOs, and agency directors who need to stay ahead.
Marco: Good morning — three stories worth your time today.
Klara: We've got Pernod Ricard making a bold push into stronger RTDs with Malibu, Nestlé committing serious money to Mexico, and a challenger snack brand using fashion to take on the big players.
Marco: It's a nice mix — premiumisation, emerging markets, and brand-building on a budget.
Klara: Let's get into it.
Marco: Pernod Ricard is pushing Malibu into stronger, higher-alcohol ready-to-drink drinks — and it's a bigger strategic gamble than it looks.
Klara: So let's set the scene. Ready-to-drink, or RTDs, are pre-mixed drinks in a can or bottle — think rum and cola, or gin and tonic — that you grab off the shelf without mixing anything yourself. The category has exploded across Europe and North America over the last few years.
Marco: Most RTDs have been relatively low in alcohol. But consumer tastes are shifting. Shoppers are looking for stronger options, and brands are scrambling to meet that demand — especially in the UK and North America, which are two of Pernod's most important markets.
Klara: So Pernod Ricard is launching higher-ABV — that's higher alcohol by volume — RTDs under the Malibu name. And that's where it gets interesting, because Malibu is not exactly known for being a strong drink.
Marco: That's the tension here. Malibu built its entire identity around being light, sweet, coconut-flavoured, and easy. It's a low-ABV brand in most people's minds. Now Pernod wants to use that same name to compete in a space that's defined by the opposite.
Klara: I actually think the brand familiarity could help. Malibu has enormous recognition — people trust it. If the product tastes good, the name might lower the barrier to trying something new.
Marco: I'm less convinced. Brand equity — the value and associations people have built up around a name — can be a double-edged... actually, let me put it plainly. When people think Malibu, they don't think strong. That mismatch is hard to overcome, no matter how good the liquid is.
Klara: Either way, this tells you something about how Pernod sees the RTD category developing — they want a bigger slice of it, and they're using their existing brands to get there faster.
Marco: Something to watch closely if you manage a brand in spirits or adjacent categories. Our next story is coming right up.
Marco: Nestlé is putting an extra billion dollars into Mexico — and the scale of that commitment tells you something important about where the company thinks growth is coming from.
Klara: To understand why this matters, you need to know what Nestlé is dealing with. Across Europe and North America — what we call mature markets, meaning growth is slow and competition is fierce — the company has been under real pressure. Consumers are trading down, volumes are soft, and there's not much room to raise prices without losing shoppers.
Marco: So Nestlé is doubling down on Mexico instead. The additional billion dollars is earmarked through to the end of 2030, and it covers a market where Nestlé is already active across confectionery, dairy, and coffee. This isn't a bet on a new frontier — it's a meaningful increase in a market they know well.
Klara: For me, the interesting question is where that money actually goes. There's a big difference between investing in factories and supply chains versus investing in brand building and local marketing. One makes you more efficient. The other makes you more loved. And in a country like Mexico, where local brands have strong roots, you need both.
Marco: That's where I'd push back slightly. Manufacturing investment lays the foundation — you can't build market share if you can't supply the shelves reliably. I'd expect Nestlé to prioritise production capacity first, then layer marketing on top as the infrastructure matures.
Klara: Fair enough, but brand managers in adjacent categories should be watching how Nestlé's local spending shifts. When a company this size commits this kind of capital to a single market, it changes the competitive environment — more shelf presence, more trade investment, more noise.
Marco: A billion reasons to pay attention. Right, our third story is up next.
Marco: Unreal Snacks — a challenger brand in the snack category — is building cultural credibility by partnering with the fashion world, and it's a smart play worth understanding.
Klara: To put this in context, challenger brands are smaller companies going up against the big players — your Mondelēz, your Nestlé. They typically can't match the advertising budgets of the giants, so they have to find other ways to get noticed. Fashion crossovers have become one of those ways.
Marco: Unreal Snacks and Chipotle are both leaning into fashion collaborations as a route to what people in brand circles call "earned media" — coverage and attention you didn't pay for directly. Instead of buying your way onto someone's radar, you create something culturally interesting enough that people talk about it without being paid to.
Klara: And I think there's something genuinely clever here. A limited-edition bag or a fashion drop costs a fraction of a national TV campaign. But if it lands right — if it gets picked up by the right creators, the right press — you can punch well above your weight. For a smaller brand trying to compete on shelf against Cadbury or Haribo, that kind of cultural heat matters.
Marco: I don't disagree on the short-term attention, but I'd question whether it moves the needle on actual purchase. Brand heat and brand preference aren't the same thing. Someone might love your collab and still reach for the familiar name at checkout.
Klara: That's a real challenge — measuring whether cultural moments actually shift buying behaviour, not just awareness.
Marco: And that's the honest question every brand manager should be sitting with. Cultural adjacency can open doors. But you still need a strong product and reliable distribution to walk through them.
Klara: Fashion gets you noticed. The snack still has to do the work.
Marco: Today's thread — premiumise, invest where growth is, or borrow cultural heat. All three brands are refusing to stand still.
Klara: So look at your brand and ask: are you chasing the market, or are you actually shaping it?