The Great Brand Correction Why CPG Giants Are Trading Performance Metrics for Long-Term Brand Stewardship

The leadership architecture of the world’s largest Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies is undergoing a fundamental transformation as the industry grapples with a crisis of brand identity. For the better part of a decade, the recruitment strategy for top-tier marketing talent focused almost exclusively on digital proficiency, programmatic fluency, and the ability to optimize media spend for immediate return on investment. Today, that trend has reversed. CPG giants are increasingly sidelining the performance-driven "growth hackers" of the 2010s in favor of traditional brand stewards—executives capable of revitalizing the emotional resonance of a product rather than just its conversion rate.

This shift is underscored by a series of high-profile appointments across the sector. When The J.M. Smucker Co. sought a new Chief Marketing Officer earlier this year, it bypassed the ranks of Silicon Valley-trained performance marketers to hire Katie Williams. A veteran of the consumer health sector and former U.S. CMO of Haleon, Williams built her reputation on the long-term stewardship of legacy brands like Advil, Sensodyne, and Centrum—products that rely on trust and category authority rather than impulse clicks. Similarly, Hormel Foods, a company that historically operated without an enterprise-wide CMO, created the role in late 2023. They filled the position with Jason Levine, a "lifer" from Mondelēz International who spent years cultivating the global brand equity of Oreo and Ritz.

Perhaps the most aggressive example of this "brand-first" pivot comes from the quick-service restaurant sector, which shares the CPG industry’s reliance on high-volume, low-margin consumer loyalty. Burger King’s new CMO, Joel Yashinsky, joined the company in early 2025 following a successful stint at Applebee’s. Upon his arrival, Yashinsky initiated a radical "brand reset" that included the dismissal of the brand’s long-standing mascot and a fundamental rethink of the company’s value proposition based on direct customer feedback. Yashinsky pointedly described the initiative not as a marketing campaign, but as a structural overhaul of what the brand represents to the modern consumer.

The Performance Marketing Trap: A Decade in Review

To understand the current correction, one must look at the digital gold rush that began roughly ten years ago. As social media platforms matured and retail media networks exploded, CPG marketing functions were rebuilt to mirror the technical requirements of these platforms. Credentials in attribution modeling and conversion optimization became more valuable than the ability to craft a brand narrative. The logic was grounded in the immediate pressures of the quarterly earnings cycle: in a world where every dollar could be tracked to a specific transaction, the "unmeasurable" art of brand building felt like an expensive luxury.

By 2019, this philosophy reached its zenith. Unilever, one of the world’s largest advertisers, eliminated the standalone CMO role following the retirement of Keith Weed. In its place, the company created the position of Chief Digital and Marketing Officer, deliberately placing "digital" first in the hierarchy. Kimberly-Clark followed a similar trajectory, merging its marketing and digital functions into a single executive role.

This era also saw the rise of the "Chief Growth Officer" (CGO). According to data from Boston Consulting Group (BCG), nearly 70% of major CPG players replaced or subordinated the CMO role to a CGO. These executives were tasked with a broad mandate that included innovation, net revenue management, and digital commerce. In the process, the traditional responsibilities of the CMO—protecting the brand’s long-term health and emotional connection with the public—were often rebranded out of existence.

The Hard Math of Brand Erosion

The industry’s pivot back to brand stewardship is not driven by nostalgia, but by harsh economic realities. The performance-marketing era succeeded in making marketing measurable, but it arguably failed to make it effective in the long term. Since 2023, total shareholder returns for the world’s largest food and beverage CPG companies have declined by approximately 7%, a stark contrast to the broader S&P 500, which expanded by 9% during the same period.

Volume growth across the CPG sector is currently stagnant, hovering at under 1% annually. Meanwhile, the threat of private-label brands has reached an inflection point. Data from the past year indicates that private-label dollar sales grew nearly three times faster than their branded equivalents. When products are marketed primarily through performance channels—focused on price, proximity, and immediate conversion—they begin to look like commodities in the eyes of the consumer.

"The category-wide rush to performance at the expense of awareness was a classic example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater," notes Scott Shamberg, CEO of indie media agency Mile Marker. Shamberg argues that CPG was particularly vulnerable to this shift because the advent of lower-funnel advanced metrics allowed companies to ignore the fact that consumers were losing their affinity for the brands themselves.

The Consumer Shift and the Price of Loyalty

The current economic climate has accelerated the need for brand differentiation. A recent McKinsey study revealed that 61% of consumers claim price matters significantly more to them today than it did two years ago. In an environment defined by inflation and "greedflation" narratives, shoppers are making much sharper trade-offs.

During the era of strong pricing power, CPG companies could afford to focus on conversion efficiency. However, as pricing has reverted and volumes remain flat, the lack of brand equity has left these companies with little to fall back on. When a consumer views a branded box of cereal and a private-label alternative as functionally identical, the branded version—which carries the overhead of a massive corporate structure—cannot compete on price alone. The "correction" currently underway is an attempt to rebuild the "meaning" that justifies a premium price point.

Maija Hoehn, CMO at independent marketing agency broadhead, suggests that the industry is finally acknowledging that efficiency and growth are not synonymous. "For the last handful of years, CPG optimized for what was measurable," Hoehn said. "What we’re seeing now is a correction toward what actually drives growth: brands that mean something to people, not just ones that convert efficiently."

Technological Bridges: CTV and AI

While the industry is returning to brand-centric leadership, it is not abandoning the digital tools developed over the last decade. Instead, it is seeking a rebalancing. Connected Television (CTV) has emerged as a critical "bridge" channel that allows marketers to combine the storytelling power of traditional television with the precision and measurement of digital media.

Furthermore, the rise of Artificial Intelligence is reshaping the backend of marketing operations, allowing brand-focused CMOs to handle fragmented channels more efficiently. Gartner analyst Greg Carlucci notes that while CPG companies historically enjoyed a competitive advantage through massive scale, the fragmentation of social media, ChatGPT-like platforms, and retail media networks has leveled the playing field. This fragmentation has created opportunities for mid-to-small-tier brands to steal market share, forcing legacy giants to double down on the one thing small competitors often lack: decades of built-in brand trust.

Broader Industry Implications and the AI Frontier

The shift in CPG marketing is occurring against a backdrop of rapid technological upheaval in the broader advertising ecosystem. As CPG companies look for "soul," the platforms they use to reach consumers are becoming increasingly automated and transactional.

OpenAI, for instance, has quietly accelerated its entry into the advertising space. The company recently launched a self-serve ads manager for ChatGPT, lowering the minimum commitment for its ad pilot to $50,000. To woo performance-minded advertisers, OpenAI has also developed a tracking pixel to measure whether ChatGPT ads actually lead to conversions. This creates a paradox for CPG marketers: while they are hiring leaders to move away from pure performance metrics, the tools at their disposal are becoming more performance-oriented than ever.

The pressure on digital platforms is also evident in the recent struggles of Snap Inc., which recently laid off 16% of its full-time staff to pivot its resources toward AI development. As platforms like Snap and Meta reorganize—Meta recently restructured its Reality Labs division to "execute faster" amid headcount reductions—the stability of the digital ad market remains in flux.

Conclusion: The Return to Stewardship

The hiring of Katie Williams at Smuckers, Jason Levine at Hormel, and Joel Yashinsky at Burger King signals a definitive end to the era where marketing was treated as a sub-discipline of data science. The industry is relearning a fundamental truth: a media plan can be perfectly optimized, but it cannot save a brand that no longer resonates with its audience.

The path forward for CPG giants involves a sophisticated hybrid model. They must maintain the digital infrastructure built over the last decade—utilizing AI for efficiency and CTV for reach—while re-empowering leaders who understand the psychology of the consumer. As private labels continue to gain ground and shareholder patience wears thin, the success of these new "brand-first" CMOs will determine whether legacy CPG companies remain cultural staples or fade into the background as high-priced commodities. The "Great Brand Correction" is not just a change in job titles; it is a fight for the survival of the branded consumer experience in an increasingly automated world.