Helping a leading drinks brand prioritize growth in a declining category

Helping a leading drinks brand prioritize growth in a declining category
2 minute read
August 27, 2026 (Updated August 31, 2026)
Arne Maas

Finding the growth opportunities worth pursuing

A leading drinks brand was navigating a declining category and needed to make smarter growth choices. The challenge was not a lack of growth opportunities, but understanding which opportunities offered the greatest potential and where investment would deliver the biggest commercial return

SKIM helped to identify, evaluate and prioritise growth opportunities in a category under pressure.

We built on the client’s existing approach to growth planning, combining multiple data sources to identify where the greatest opportunities existed and which deserved priority. Our work helped answer four key growth questions.

Identifying the greatest growth opportunities

Even in a category under pressure, some opportunities offer more potential than others. The work helped identify where the greatest headroom for growth existed, allowing the team to focus on the opportunities most likely to make a meaningful difference.

Balancing growth with value creation

Growth alone is not enough. The team needed to understand which opportunities could drive both volume and value, helping them make choices that supported sustainable business performance.

Understanding where the brand can win

Not every opportunity is equally achievable. By understanding what drives consumer choice, the team could identify where the brand had the strongest right to win and where investment was most likely to pay off.

Turning insight into action

Identifying opportunities is only the first step. The work helped build alignment around priorities and translate insights into clear commercial actions, giving the team a shared direction for growth.

A clearer direction for growth

The work turned a complex market picture into a clearer growth agenda: where to focus, which opportunities to prioritize, and what would have the greatest impact.

Wondering where your biggest growth opportunities are?

Not all headroom is worth chasing. We help identify where category growth, remaining headroom and profit potential intersect, revealing the opportunities with the greatest potential for future value creation.

For this client, we identified priority opportunities growing more than twice as fast as the category and representing over €90m in untapped value headroom. Even modest gains in these spaces would drive meaningful growth, while the wider set of strategic opportunities identified had the potential to improve overall margin by more than 4%.

Arne Maas

Written by

Arne Maas

Arne Maas is a business consultant at SKIM. He’s worked in the fields of strategy, innovation, communications, and market research for leading companies including Unilever, Friesland Nutrition, Philips, and Heineken. Arne has also served as professor of marketing and innovation at the Rotterdam Business School, specializing in nonconscious decision making and innovative entrepreneurship. Arne holds a PhD in Psychology from the Radboud University of Nijmegen.

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