Resetting Growth Through Occasions: The Next Evolution of RGM

Most companies are still trying to grow using a familiar playbook: adjust pricing, run promotions, optimize channels, and fine-tune assortment. These levers matter, but they're increasingly delivering diminishing returns.

The core issue isn't execution. It's where the effort is focused.

Growth is still managed within commercial levers, disconnected from how consumers actually consume, how they decide in the moment, and whether strategies hold up in real environments where products are not just sold (retail), but prepared, served, and consumed (foodservice).

The result is predictable. Pricing drives switching, not incremental demand. Promotions shift volume across time or competitors. Assortment improves shelf presence but misses actual usage. These levers can optimize growth. They cannot create it.

Growth today has to come from two places: increasing the number of consumption events, and increasing the value captured within each one.

Occasions as a Growth Mechanism

Occasions do two things at once. They increase how often consumption happens, driving volume. At the same time, they define the context of that moment, which determines willingness to pay and therefore mix.

A quick, on-the-go moment values convenience. A social or experiential moment allows for premiumization. A planned consumption moment prioritizes value and scale. The same product behaves differently in each.

The opportunity is not just to be present across occasions, but to be relevant within them. This is already visible in foodservice. Afternoon “happy hour” programs in cafés target the slowest part of the day and unlock incremental visits with minimal cannibalization. The focus is on high-margin beverages and snacks, often supported by simple offers that build repeat behavior.

Similarly, well-designed bundling increases average check size, introduces consumers to new products, and combines core items with higher-margin add-ons. In both cases, growth comes not from pricing alone, but from designing moments that expand demand and improve value capture at the same time.

Why Most Companies Miss This

The issue is not recognizing occasions. Most organizations understand when and why consumption happens. The gap is in translating that understanding into integrated decisions.

Consumption is analyzed in one part of the organization, while pricing, packs, and execution are owned elsewhere. As a result, decisions are not aligned with how consumers actually choose in the moment.

This is not a talent problem. It is a system problem, driven by siloed decisions, disconnected data, and misaligned incentives.

In many organizations, marketing builds occasion-based positioning, while commercial teams optimize pricing and promotions independently. When these worlds don't connect, value leaks. Products designed for premium moments end up promoted through generic stock-up mechanics. Even when product design is right, execution often breaks under real-world constraints.

The outcome is predictable. Companies optimize within existing demand but fail to expand consumption.

What's missing is a connected system that links where demand exists, how consumers decide, what is offered, and how it is executed.

Turning Occasions Into a Growth System

Traditional price pack architecture helps organize the portfolio, but it doesn't answer a more important question: Are we winning in the moments that actually drive consumption?

To unlock growth, companies need to shift from optimizing products to designing for occasions, and from isolated decisions to a connected system built across five layers.

1. Start with where growth actually exists.

Growth is uneven. It concentrates in specific moments, some frequent, some high-value, many underserved. Identify where consumption is already happening at scale, where it is emerging or underdeveloped, and where the category is absent despite clear consumer need. Anchor innovation to these moments to expand both usage and relevance.

2. Understand how products are actually used.

A product’s role is defined by how it is used, not how it is positioned. Clarify whether it is routine or occasional, individual or shared, and whether it's driven by convenience, value, or experience. Designing for use ensures the product fits naturally into the moment and enables premiumization where it is justified.

3. Analyze how consumers make trade-offs in the moment.

Consumers do not evaluate products in isolation. They make quick trade-offs based on context.
Effective RGM requires understanding switching behavior, what drives decisions, and when consumers walk away. This is where analytics becomes essential, not as reporting but as a way to anticipate and shape demand. When done well, pricing aligns with real willingness to pay, portfolio decisions reduce cannibalization, and mix improves.

4. Make sure it actually works in the real world.

Even the best-designed product will fail if it cannot be executed. Each environment has constraints — time, labor, space, and consistency. Products must be easy to choose, prepare, and deliver. Many strategies break here because execution realities are not built into design.

5. Apply pricing, packs, and promotions with precision.

Only after the above is clear do commercial levers become truly effective. At this point, pricing reflects context-specific willingness to pay, packs are designed for the moment rather than the shelf, and promotions reinforce behavior instead of distorting it.

This is where OBPPC — occasion, brand, pack, price, and channel — decisions become effective, ensuring each product has a clear role in the moment where consumption happens. Because these decisions are grounded in real usage and switching behavior, they lead to better price realization, stronger mix, and more consistent volume capture.

What Leaders Need to Do Differently

Most organizations are already investing in RGM, but much of that effort still optimizes existing demand.

The opportunity is to expand demand before optimizing it. That means identifying new occasions, understanding behavior within those moments, and translating that into portfolio, pricing, and execution decisions.

Doing this consistently requires a data-led, analytics-driven system at scale, one that connects consumption signals, switching behavior, and execution into continuous decision-making.

When this comes together:

• More consumption events drive volume.
• Better-designed moments drive mix.
• Context-aligned pricing improves realization.

When organizations do this consistently at scale, they turn demand into measurable financial growth — what we call data to EBITDA, at scale.

Venky Ramesh is the chief client officer and group P&L head for consumer ecosystem at LatentView Analytics. Keith Bogdan is the vice president of RGM and sales operations at Rich Products Corporation.