Independent Brand Diagnostics & Advisory for FMCG and Retail
Written analysis, judgment, and advisory for FMCG / CPG leadership teams, founders, and private equity on the strategic choices that decide what a brand is worth—and how to realise that value.
STRATEGIC ADVISORY — DUBLIN
The pace of consumer and channel change has outrun most leadership teams’ ability to read their own brand performance clearly. Decisions get made on lagging data and confident opinion.
SERVICESEvery engagement starts with an independent read on the brand.
Most mandates begin with a diagnostic or a workshop and move into advisory once a path is chosen.
01
Brand Diagnostics
A written verdict on your brand, commissioned on your data and timed to the moment ownership puts its value in play.
02
Brand Clarity™ Workshop
An in-house working session with the full leadership team, set against the evidence. The team leaves committed to one path and clear on what to stop funding.
03
Advisory
Retained advice that carries the chosen path into the operating plan and stays in the business while it is executed. Interim executive roles where the business needs an operator.
BRAND REPORTSForensic verdicts on brands whose outcome is already know.
Each report establishes what happened to a brand and why. Where the finding is that the asset declined through its own decisions, the report says so.
FORENSIC REPORTKing Bloom Cocktails — UK
Before capital is committed. It tests whether the brand supports the case being made for it, what the upside depends on, and what it costs to get there. Written for the investment decision, not a valuation.
FORENSIC REPORTMont Beer — Ireland
Before capital is committed. It tests whether the brand supports the case being made for it, what the upside depends on, and what it costs to get there. Written for the investment decision, not a valuation.
OUTLOOK REPORTNix & Kix — UK
Before capital is committed. It tests whether the brand supports the case being made for it, what the upside depends on, and what it costs to get there. Written for the investment decision, not a valuation.
ADVISORY SERVICESAdvisory follows a diagnostic and a decision to act.
Cowan & Associates works with FMCG and CPG leadership teams to turn a chosen path into an operating plan, and stays in the business while it's executed, rather than handing over a report and leaving. The same judgment that named the path carries into the decisions that follow.
We also advise investors and capital allocators on the true potential of an investment or acquisition target, and appraise the category it competes in.
Mandates are retained and deliberately selected. Where a business needs an operator rather than an advisor, we take interim executive roles.
BRAND CLARITY BRIEFINGSDiscover what really determines a brand’s success or failure.
Short, sharp reads on how consumer brands grow, stall, and exit, and what the pattern says about where the value sits.
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