Headed For Disruption? Here’s A ‘Super’ Way To Tell

Identifying early signs of changing market dynamics can propel leaders to leapfrog competition.

“Early warning systems” are popping up everywhere in our lives, intended to help us harness change and guide us on critical actions to take.

In medicine, genomics provide signals that spark an early watch for potential future diseases. At home, apps such as Baby Monitor, Waze, and UP deliver information to aid us in better decision-making, allowing parents to watch their newborns from outside the home, steering drivers out of traffic, and motivating consumers to lead healthier lifestyles.

While there are few warning systems in the business world, imagine the power such a system could unlock. For marketing leaders who must determine how to navigate impending change, these systems empower them with the confidence to embrace, rather than avoid, it.

Often when we hear disruption, we imagine an unexpected, unseen force that overwhelms us. But as we talked to marketers, we found they are rarely blindsided by disruptive category trends. Most often they saw the disruption coming a long way away. Rather, they miscalculate the speed with which trends become massive and underestimate their staying power. Identifying early signs of changing market dynamics can propel leaders to leapfrog competition.

A powerful example of an early warning system is the super consumer—a highly engaged, high-spending consumer—overlaid on streaming big data. These are leading consumers who exhibit behaviors years (ranging from two years to as many as six-plus years) ahead of the market. They are especially ahead of the curve in times of disruption.

This is the case within two quickly developing beverage categories: coffee and beer. Behavior among “supers” provided clear guidance on emerging realities. High-growth product segments within coffee (i.e., ready-to-drink coffee) exhibit a consistently higher share of wallet among coffee supers, while declining product segments fall short. In coffee, supers are even more reliable indicators of change during disruptive times.

Certain product segments realized disproportionately strong shifts among supers after a period of market alteration. Economy coffee dropped sharply among supers relative to the market between 2013 and 2014, while K-Cup, a fast-growing coffee segment, saw a steep increase in share of wallet among supers during the same time period. Over time, the rest of the market will likely catch up to supers, closing the share gap and reaching a steady state of category growth.

Similarly within the beer category, craft beer’s share has remained 6% to 10% higher among supers over the last 10 years, mirroring its rapid share gain of U.S. beer volume.

Beyond being used as a tool to determine where to play, supers are also valuable in placing big bets on retailers. For example, online grocery buying supers provide insight into growth drivers of the rapidly evolving online grocery market. Today’s fastest growing retailer models in online grocery (i.e. grocery home delivery models) have higher penetration and share of wallet among supers.

Marketing leaders can unveil supers and other warning systems within their own datasets to help hedge against black swan events. These events are large, impactful, rationalized in hindsight, and unpredictable, but warning systems could provide the fodder to fortify one’s position. These systems can also uncover early opportunities to establish first mover advantage. Marketing leaders can gather data on supers, internally or externally, to evaluate historical trends and leading-edge buyers or regions.

Mining data for these powerful signals will help companies anticipate and articulate shifts to make small, focused bets that will mitigate risk and capture the up side. These warning systems are a smarter way to move fast or place a bigger bet on new opportunities and create a break-in-case-of-emergency scenario when one must move all in to stay alive.