Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Heineken links attention data to brand outcomes, Omaha Steaks chases Gen Z, and Tesco forecasts a low-alcohol festive season with £33.8bn sales behind the call.
Heineken is building the measurement case before anyone asks it to cut budgets. Tesco — with £33.8bn in first-half sales — is already telling alcohol brands what kind of Christmas to expect. FMCG marketers need to hear both.
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.
Enjoying the show? A quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify helps other marketers find us.
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 — we've got a solid lineup for you today.
Klara: Heineken is rethinking how it measures digital advertising, and there's a real lesson in there for any brand trying to justify its media spend.
Marco: Then we're looking at how Omaha Steaks is trying to win over Gen Z — and what that means for legacy brands everywhere.
Klara: And Tesco is already calling a healthier Christmas. Alcohol brands, take note.
Marco: Let's dig in.
Marco: Heineken has rebuilt the way it measures whether its digital advertising is actually working — and the approach is worth understanding.
Klara: So let's back up. For years, FMCG brands have struggled to justify what's called upper-funnel spend — that's advertising designed to build brand awareness rather than drive an immediate sale. It's hard to prove it works. And when budgets get squeezed, it's usually the first thing cut.
Marco: What Heineken's in-house team has done is combine two types of measurement. First, attention metrics — basically, did real people actually see the ad, and for how long? Second, brand awareness data — did that exposure change how people think about Heineken? By linking both together, they're trying to draw a straight line from a digital ad to a business outcome.
Klara: And they're doing this specifically to defend their digital ad spend on the open web — which means the broader internet, not just social media platforms or Google. That's the part I find interesting. The open web is often where brands spend and then struggle to prove return.
Marco: That struggle is the whole story. Most brand managers know that awareness drives sales eventually — but eventually is a hard thing to put in a budget presentation. Heineken is essentially building the evidence before anyone asks them to cut the line.
Klara: My one hesitation is that this kind of measurement infrastructure takes serious resource to build. Heineken has an in-house team sophisticated enough to pull it off. Smaller brands, or brands still relying on agencies for everything, might read this and think it's out of reach.
Marco: That's a fair concern. But the principle is scalable — even a basic link between attention data and brand tracking is better than nothing. The brands that start building that connection now will be in a much stronger position when the next round of budget cuts arrives.
Klara: Coming up next — our second story of the morning.
Marco: Omaha Steaks is trying to reinvent itself for a generation that probably doesn't know it exists.
Klara: So a bit of context. Omaha Steaks is an American food brand that's been selling premium meat by mail for over a century. It built its business on older, loyal customers — people who'd been buying from them for decades. The problem is that customer base isn't getting any younger.
Marco: What the brand is now doing is a full marketing overhaul. It's dropping the traditional direct-response approach — that's the "call now, order today" style of advertising — and moving toward culture-led marketing. That means showing up in spaces where Gen Z actually spends time, in ways that feel relevant rather than salesy.
Klara: And this is the defining challenge for a lot of heritage brands right now. You've got decades of brand equity — meaning genuine recognition and goodwill built up over time — but it's concentrated in an ageing audience. The next generation hasn't been recruited, and the clock is ticking.
Marco: The strategic tightrope here is real. If you change too much, you lose the loyalists who made you. If you change too little, Gen Z never notices you at all. Omaha Steaks is essentially betting that it can modernise its voice without abandoning its core identity.
Klara: I'd actually question whether culture-led marketing is enough on its own. Gen Z responds to authenticity and values — sustainability, animal welfare, where food actually comes from. A brand selling premium red meat needs a credible answer to those questions, not just a fresher Instagram grid.
Marco: That's a sharp point. The tone can change overnight. The substance takes longer. Any brand facing this same challenge needs to ask whether it's doing both.
Klara: Our third story is on its way — let's keep moving.
Marco: Tesco has gone public with a bold forecast — it thinks British shoppers will choose lower-alcohol and healthier options this Christmas.
Klara: To understand why that matters, you need to know that Tesco is the UK's largest supermarket. What it predicts, it also prepares for — meaning it will stock, promote and merchandise accordingly. For any brand selling alcohol or soft drinks, Tesco's forecast isn't just an opinion. It's a direction of travel.
Marco: The prediction comes with real commercial weight behind it. Tesco has just reported first-half sales up two percent to £33.8 billion. This isn't a retailer guessing at trends from a position of weakness. When a grocer this size names low-alcohol as the defining Christmas trend, it shapes shelf space decisions, promotional slots, and which brands get featured in those all-important Christmas catalogues.
Klara: For the no and low alcohol category — brands like Lucky Saint, Peroni Nastro Azzurro 0.0, or Seedlip — this is a massive tailwind heading into the most commercially important weeks of the year. If Tesco is pointing shoppers in that direction, the brands already positioned there don't need to convince anyone. The retailer is doing it for them.
Marco: For the full-strength incumbents, though, this is a genuine warning. If your entire festive campaign is built around indulgence and tradition — which most alcohol advertising still is — you may find yourself misaligned with what your most important retail partner is actually telling consumers.
Klara: I'd push back slightly on assuming this replaces traditional festive behaviour entirely. Christmas is still Christmas. People will still buy full-strength wine and spirits. The shift is probably at the margin — a bottle of low-alcohol sparkling here, an alcohol-free beer there.
Marco: At the margin is exactly where brand battles are won and lost. The brands ready for that shift will clean up. The ones still planning for last year's Christmas might not.
Marco: Today's thread — whether you're measuring attention, repositioning for a new generation, or reading where consumer habits are heading, the job is the same: stop waiting for certainty and start acting on the signals already in front of you.
Klara: So pick one signal from today — and ask honestly what your brand is actually doing about it.