The 50:50 Game: How brands can win on shelves

The 50:50 ratio isn’t plucked out of thin air. It’s what 13 years of Brand Footprint data reveals about the reality of the modern FMCG market.

But here’s the key part: while the overall odds remain stubbornly fixed, it’s not a game of chance. Brands who play their cards right can systematically shift the probability in their favor.

So how do you arrange your pieces on the board and come out a winner?

Why you need to play The 50:50 Game

Powered by Kantar, the Brand Footprint is a report that assesses the FMCG landscape every year. It’s built one of the most comprehensive pictures of consumer choice available anywhere, now covering more than 30,000 brands across 56 countries.

And what data shows is that this 50:50 split – the split between winners and losers – plays out with ‘remarkable consistency’.

That means each new brand theoretically starts with a level playing field: a 50:50 chance of success. Without deliberate intervention, a brand faces the same odds as a coin toss.

That doesn’t mean a firm 50:50 split each year – of course there are good years and bad years – but over the long-term, the ratio plays out.

“The 50:50 rule holds firm for food and beverages just as it does across FMCG,” Benjamin Cawthray, global director of behavioral analytics, Worldpanel by Numerator and behind this year’s Brand Footprint report, told us.

“Yes, when we drill down to sector level, there’s more variability year-on-year. In years when beverages outperforms the rest of FMCG, we see more beverage brands in growth: but the same pattern plays out in homecare and personal care when they’re the standout sectors. Overall, we don’t see significant variances for food or beverages versus the broader market.”

Why 2026 is the year to level up

There is a caveat to this 50:50 split. The pandemic and lockdowns of 2020 forced a huge behavioral shift. And, two years later, high inflation also created a huge shake up. The 50:50 ratio was unbalanced.

Yet 2024 showed how the 50:50 dynamic always reasserts itself: with a return to equilibrium in 2024 (50.2% and 49.5%).

But 2026 is hardly shaping up as a year defined by stability. Tariff uncertainty, conflicts, supply chain disruption: the list goes on.

That means the game gets harder: and less than 50% of brands may achieve growth.

When the chips are down

Brands that are on the sunny side of the 50% - those that are growing – have a better chance of remaining on the right side of the coin.

Reversing declines means putting in substantially more investment than would be required for maintain growth.

That means, sometimes, it’s time to fold. For companies managing multiple brands, the strategy is clear: protect and accelerate existing winners while being realistic about the investment required to turn around declining assets.

Nowhere is this more obvious that in Coca-Cola’s decision to ‘kill the zombies’, a strategy it accelerated in the pandemic: cutting down from 400 to 200 master brands.

Big winners: Lay’s, Nescafe, Sprite and more

But on the other hand, it’s not simply a game of chance.

Winners know how to shift the game in their favour.

Pricing is an obvious brand lever that brands can control (brands can generally raise prices by 1-5% without negatively impacting the likelihood of growth).

But the most important factor to focus on is penetration. That’s the percentage of households buying a particular brand.

The most successful brands are those that have identified opportunities to go beyond their core consumers and key audiences and find new fans and new occasions.

Brand Finance looks at this via the concept of Consumer Reach Points (CRPs): a metric used to measure the strength of a brand by combining penetration (how many households buy the brand) and frequency (how often they buy it).

And here are some of the big brands that are winning the game, based on 2024 analysis.

• Lay’s was high achiever, increasing its CRPs by over 80 million to move up to fifth in the ranking. This signifies eight years of back-to-back growth: ‘a masterclass in momentum’
• Nescafé gained over 160 million CRPs, representing a turnaround for the brand. Having managed to break the decline momentum, the brand has now achieved four consecutive years of CRP growth.
• Sprite and Red Bull continue to impress with 4.3% and 3.3% CRP growth respectively. Both were also big winners in the previous two years’ rankings.
• Pringles added 32 million CRPs through one of the biggest penetration increases seen last year.

The playbook revealed: Three top tips

Here’s how top brands are growing penetration metrics, as identified by Brand Footprint:

1. A targeted focus on non-buyers: identifying new audiences, and taking the courage to invest in unfamiliar territory
2. Innovation that expands occasions: the most effective penetration approaches expand the category’s addressable market rather than simply competing for existing demand.
3. Brand consistency as foundation. Sustained penetration requires unwavering brand consistency, despite shaping innovation for local markets

Brands need to ask themselves the following questions. Do they know who prospective buyers are? Do they know how to connect with them and tap into their world? Can they work out what scale they need to deliver financial targets? And do they have the courage to reach out to new, unproven audiences with different strategies?

If 2026 is a year the 50:50 game turns into a 45:55 game, then brands need to know the rules, strategies... and be ready to play.