What Managing a Declining Brand Taught Me About Audits. Hint: Not Optimism.
This is Part 4 in the 2026 Marketing Planning Series.
During my time at Clorox, I was promoted to manage a brand with declining sales in a declining category—third straight year of YoY declines. Despite the promotion, it wasn’t an assignment I was excited about.
In CPG, it’s usually more fun to work on a winning brand (and better for your year-end bonus). You get splashy TV, big launches, and “surprise & delight” budgets.
Turnarounds are different. They’re… character-building.
You’re not debating creative concepts. You’re explaining to your GM why a SKU is down again for the second week in a row at Walmart—and deciding what that means.
Is it a one-off?
The start of a broader decline?
Or a leading indicator for the quarter?
You debate velocity, share, and marketing mix. You pressure-test assumptions daily. There’s no room for wishful thinking.
So I started with an audit—to understand what was working, what wasn’t, where effort wasn’t translating into results, and what consumers were telling us through their choices.
In a turnaround, progress rarely announces itself. KPI wins don’t rise together. Some numbers fall. Some stagnate. A few quietly improve. The real work is deciding which of those signals matter—and which don’t.
That discipline surfaced a real consumer behavior insight. It reshaped how we understood the category, led to a new SKU and a sharper, data-backed sales story, and ultimately a Costco sell-in—a 40% distribution increase that took six months to land and another three to show up in the numbers.
So as you look ahead, here’s what’s worth auditing:
1. What’s already working
Where are customers really discovering you? What converted? What engaged? What offers moved volume?
These are your green shoots. Double down before chasing new tactics.
2. Where the funnel is breaking
Is the issue awareness? Consideration? PDP drop-off? Repeat purchase?
Fix the leak—not the symptom.
3. What you funded that didn’t land
The in-store partnership you repeated because you did it last year—despite minimal impact.
The campaign you ran because a competitor did.
The initiative that made a metric look better—but didn’t change outcomes.
The packaging tweak that added complexity without improving velocity.
Name it. Learn from it. Stop doing it.
4. What you should’ve pursued—but didn’t
The channel you thought was “too early.”
The hire you delayed.
The positioning shift that felt risky—but right.
This is where regret becomes insight.
Once you’ve tallied it all, here’s the move:
Take your green shoots and double down.
Kill what didn’t land—don’t wind it down.
Decide if your missed bets still matter and assign an owner and timeline.
Fix the one funnel break that would unlock the most growth.
In hindsight, that role was the best training I could’ve gotten. It’s where I learned that sustainable growth is built on discipline, clear-eyed assessment, and the conviction to ignore metrics that don’t matter.
