NECG Notes -From The New England Consulting Group

David Stone, a Managing Partner at the New England Consulting Group recalls the three decisions he and his management team made when they (PepsiCo) bought Taco Bell and began to expand the brand's footprint nationally. The lessons learned then still apply to many of the challenges and opportunities facing the fast-casual category today.

It may be hard to believe but in the early 1980s, Frito Lay's Cheetos Brand was at risk of becoming an unsupported harvest brand. Enter the New England Consulting Group who with the help of a smart client and a wonderfully creative advertising character put the brand on a course to grow 10X over the decade that followed. Take a few minutes to listen to the story of Cheetos turnaround and the birth of Chestah Cheetah!

Cardinal Health is one of the world's largest medical distributors and medical services companies. After a spate of acquisition, this behemoth was looking for a way to organize its businesses in a way that made sense and added value to customers. The New England Consulting Group helped them organize and optimize the way they presented these businesses to the marketplace and thought about them inside the Cardinal machine.

What do you do when a product that has a legitimate use is overwhelmed by an illegal one? Methamphetamine use in the US started to grow rapidly in the 1990s driven primarily by Mexican poly-drug cartels. Unfortunately, Pseudoephedrine, the active nasal decongestant ingredient in Sudafed and many other cold and allergy products was one of the precursor chemicals that meth makers used.  NECG Managing Partner David Stone talks with Steven Robins who was the Category Director at Pfizer Consumer Healthcare when the "Meth hit the fan."

Well before Casper, Purple, Tuft & Needle, and others figured out that you could sell mattresses to consumers without the middleman, there was Tempurpedic who disrupted the category by offering a technological innovation, memory foam, into a new channel, direct-to- consumer. NECG worked with the market leader Simmons to respond to this threat by evolving their innovation model and branding constructs. As you will see, the result was a new, premium sub-brand that woke up the brand.

Stanley Tools, one of America's oldest companies needed to drive growth in their manual hand tools business at a time when their main channels of distribution were shrinking and new, power tools were becoming all the rage. Listen to the story of how insight and nomenclature contributed to the launch of "Contractor Grade" and helped Stanley grow profitably, ultimately acquiring many of the best known tool brands in the world.

Before the Keto and Paleo diets, there was Atkins. A pioneer in low carbohydrate nutrition, Atkins is and was a powerhouse brand in the weight loss industry but it wasn't always successful. After growing to nearly $750 Million in the late 1990s the Atkins diet was over extended and in serious peril. The brand was in decline, and the company was facing liquidation.  The bankers in charge of Atkins' fate reached out to the New England Consulting Group to get an evaluation of whether or not they should pull the plug.  Join NECG's Founder, Gary Stibel as he talks with Managing Partner, Steven Robins about the insights and actions that saved the brand.