Category Strategy Enablers

Effective Category Strategy Enablers link back to demand

What is a category enabler?

Category Enablers are tactics, that enable the category strategy to come to life in-store and convert demand into purchase. 

They cover all aspects of the shopper mix from communication along the path to purchase, to promotional strategy, merchandising initiatives and point of sale. 

How do you develop strong category enablers?

As with any aspect of an effective category strategy, the start-point has to be identifying and clarifying demand opportunities (known as demand spaces) and then creating category drivers that will meet this demand and drive growth. 

Category strategy enablers are usually designed to bring the drivers to life for the shopper, encouraging the shopper to think about consumption occasions and make a purchase.

Steps to develop compelling Category Enablers:

The most effective category strategies start by mapping out potential to drive consumption for your target consumers - identifying unmet or changing needs for target consumers (what they want or need, where and when). 

These unmet or changing consumption opportunities are often referred to as Demand Spaces as there is a clear space for something new or different to happen and meet this need. 

Once demand spaces are clearly defined, the next step is to identify how the business can meet these needs and drive growth, hence the terminology Category Drivers.

Drivers are designed to encapsulate the growth opportunity, and should be clear and compelling, engaging internal and external stakeholders. 

The process of developing a category strategy is often referred to as a funnel, as all the elements should flow and link together.

The objectives for enablers should link back to the demand spaces e.g. aiming to drive penetration, weight or frequency of purchase (and consumption) to positively influence shopper behaviour and make a fundamental difference to the category and brands. 

Best Practice Category Enablers:

By definition Category Enablers should be designed to incrementally grow the brand sales and therefore the category. 

The key to success is ensuring that the category vision and the proposed tactics (enablers) are at the right level, which means they can be influenced by your brands and can be implemented by your retail partners. 

The most effective strategies have a mix of tactics that are easily understood and easy to implement as well as tactics that are more complex, or longer term initiatives that may take a while to land. 

Ultimately, if everyone buys into an inspiring vision and can see a sizeable growth opportunity then we usually find that more people (internally and externally) will readily give up their time and allocate resources to work towards the bigger picture and deliver initiatives and tactics that result in step change growth.