Growth of brands in Europe from 2019-2023

A final set of learnings (for now) from 16 countries

Winning brands limit churn better

Building on last week’s pick of the week, we look at the percentage of buyers that a brand wins vs loses in two specific years and show the net effect in terms of buyer numbers. Both in 2020 and 2023 the pattern is consistent: while churn is inevitable for any brand (and much more pronounced in 2023 vs 2020), winning brands are more successful in refilling this leaky bucket. Losing brands do not win enough new buyers to stop the losses from leakage.

Winning brands did better in all years

Looking at the year-to-year net change in buyer numbers for winning and losing brands over the full period we see that winners did much better in gaining buyers in 2020 (where losers maintained buyer numbers) and in the difficult years since managed to stop the bleeding. Losers lost 4% or more of their buyers per year in 2021, 2022 and 2023.

Winning results in more loyalty

Brands that increased share between 2019 and 2023 also saw their average share-of-wallet increase: buyers of these brands allocate a higher percentage of what they spend on the category to these brands. In contrast, share losers did not only lose buyers, but these buyers on average allocate a lower share of their category budget to these brands.