Advisory · Health-forward CPG

A strategic decision partner for better-for-you food & beverage founders.

Most mission-driven brands are not killed by a weak mission. They are killed by weak velocity — product that does not move off the shelf fast enough to keep the slot. Velocity is settled earlier than that, in a handful of decisions about positioning and the occasion you own. We bring brand rigor to those decisions — so you stop spending on the wrong things and get to lead as CEO again.

Get a free positioning review

It is free. Five written questions, no meeting to get it, and nothing confidential requested. You get two to three pages back within five business days: where your willingness to pay is set now, what set it there, and up to three things that would move it. If the honest answer is that your position is fine and the constraint is elsewhere, you get that instead.

Five questions. No meeting.
Two to three pages in five days.
Start here

Trial and repeat are telling you different things.

If repeat beats trial, the product is doing its job and everything before the first purchase is not — that got settled on the shelf, long before any campaign. If trial beats repeat, the shelf is working and the product or the occasion is not. Either way the fix is a decision rather than a campaign — and they are not the same decision.
The problem

You have the mission. What you need is momentum.

A better-for-you brand wins a shelf, and a clock starts. The retailer is watching how fast the product turns. If velocity is weak, more distribution does not save the brand — it just speeds up the clock against it, because every new store is another shelf measuring the same slow turn.

The instinct is to spend: more ads, more sampling, more doors, a bigger team. Most of that spend does not move velocity. The discipline that does is knowing the few dollars and the few decisions that actually matter — and the expensive ones to avoid.

What this is — and isn't

What this is

  • A thinking partner on the decisions that settle velocity: your positioning, the occasion you own, what to stop spending on, which door and when.
  • Enterprise commercial rigor, at the scale you're actually operating at.
  • Clear, defensible decisions you can take back to your team and your board.

What this isn't

  • An agency running your campaigns or making your creative.
  • A story that outruns the product. If the competition genuinely tastes better or costs less to make, the product decision comes first.
  • A fractional CMO sitting in the seat and running the marketing function day to day.
  • A promise to get you into a specific retailer. The door is a decision, not a goal.
Where this fits

Fractional CMO vs. agency vs. in-house — and the decision that sits above all three.

Each of these is the right answer to a different question. The difference is whether you need someone to make the call or someone to do the work. This practice is about the decisions.

CULT+MATH

Decides

The decisions the other three inherit: positioning, occasion, spend, timing. Advisory, not execution.

Agency

Executes

Campaigns, creative, channels. The right fit when you already know the call and need it made well.

Fractional CMO

Operates

Runs the marketing function day to day. The right fit when you need a senior operator in the seat.

In-house hire

Owns

Carries it full-time. The right fit at the stage and budget where a dedicated leader pays off.

Where the rigor comes from

These are brands I've helped build. The decisions behind them are the same ones in front of you now — and they matter more when the company is yours. The work here is the quality of your decisions, not the volume of your marketing.

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Start with the decision.

No deck and no pitch. Tell me the decision you're carrying that you haven't been able to close — the spend you're unsure about, the door you're not sure is right — and what it costs you to keep carrying it. I'll tell you plainly whether I can help, and if I can't, who can.

Get a free positioning review