FMCG A-brands are under pressure like never before. Margin erosion, private label growth, declining loyalty. These are no longer temporary bottlenecks but structural forces reshaping the market. What makes this moment different is not inflation or price sensitivity alone, but a deeper shift in where trust lives. And increasingly, that trust no longer automatically belongs to A-brands. A painful and yet realistic conclusion.

Reality check

Most A-brands still build their strategy around retail. Shelf presence, promotions, pack innovation, media reach. All optimised for someone else’s system. When you do that, the same pattern keeps repeating itself. Margins are squeezed because price becomes the main differentiator. Customer data remains out of reach because the retailer owns the transaction and the relationship. The brand experience is highly fragmented, controlled by third parties, and stripped of meaning. Loyalty weakens and brand power erodes.

This is not a tactical problem. It is a structural one. You cannot build brand power inside a system designed for retail power

The Trust Flip

What we are witnessing right now is a fundamental reversal in consumer perception. In many categories, a majority of shoppers now believe retailer brands are “just as good” or even better than A-brands. When the perceived value difference disappears, the price premium collapses. A 30–40% price gap becomes impossible to defend if the brand no longer stands for something distinctly more valuable.

Living examples

Two simple examples expose the problem. A 350-gram of Calvé peanut butter sells for around €3 in Dutch retail, while Jumbo’s 350-gram private label costs €1.39. Ariel White Wash (1.35 L) averages €19.99, compared to Formil White Wash (1.5 L) at €3.50. These are not marginal differences, they are structural price gaps. The uncomfortable question is: what makes Calvé or Ariel genuinely worth this premium today? What real, lived value do they add for consumers beyond familiarity and decades of advertising investment? Because throwing millions into TV spend may still buy awareness, but it does not build belief and it certainly does not compensate for a 5× price difference at the shelf.

And what to think of the recent General Mills “meltdown”. The 2025 results: Net Sales declined 7% to $4.9 billion. Net Earnings collapsed by 48% to $413 million. CEO Jeff Harmening stated: “while the company ramped up marketing spend to boost brand equity and justify price premiums, volume did not return as expected. Traditional marketing levers are failing”.

The Mistake.

For decades, A-brands equated reach with relevance. Advertising built awareness, retail built scale, and promotions drove volume. But reach does not create relationships. Visibility does not create trust. And campaigns do not create memory if they are not anchored in lived experience.

In outsourcing distribution, data and interaction to retail and media ecosystems, brands slowly outsourced something far more critical: control over their own meaning. Without realising it, many A-brands drifted from being protagonists in people’s lives to becoming interchangeable suppliers on a shelf. And we all know: Once trust flips, it rarely flips back on its own.

What winners do differently

Winners treat retail as an important channel, but no longer as the centre of gravity. They understand where CX and DTC need to be understood for what they truly are: not volume engines, but brand-building engines.

The role of CX and DC is not to replace retail sales or compete on scale. Their role is to create belief and trust. To make the brand tangible again. To show, prove and live the value that justifies a premium long before a consumer stands in front of the shelf. When done well, these experiences don’t drive mass volume directly, they create brand heat. And that heat travels back into retail. People buy differently in the supermarket when they have already felt the brand elsewhere. When they have seen the craftsmanship, tasted the innovation, experienced the story, or been part of something scarce and meaningful. CX and DTC create that context. Retail harvests it.

Seen this way, CX is not a parallel sales channel. It is the place where A-brands rebuild credibility, desirability and emotional value, so that the premium price on the shelf starts to make sense again.

The Prove

Hertog Jan beer (from ABInBev) reclaimed growth by translating its brand promise “For the Love of Beer” into a radically consistent end-to-end customer experience from brewery and brewers to limited editions, DTC, community and content. By creating scarce, meaningful experiences like Vatgerijpt (90,000 bottles sold out in under 30 minutes) and a subscription-based fan ecosystem, the brand rebuilt premium perception, loyalty and pricing power without relying on retail promotions. The result: structurally stronger brand power, rising penetration and market share, and ultimately overtaking Heineken as the #1 beer brand in Dutch supermarkets powered by CX, not media weight.

The Conclusion

A-brands do not lose because their products suddenly became worse. They lose when trust migrates elsewhere. And trust today is built through CX, not exposure. Innovative DTC activations and limited editions ignite A-brand “heat,” creating a halo effect that elevates the entire portfolio. This premium reset drives perceived value and sales velocity for standard products on the retail shelf.

The future belongs to the A-brands that stop optimising for someone else’s system, and start building relationships that retailers cannot replicate. That is why CX is no longer a function. It is the way forward.