The Functional Beverage Category Is Quietly Changing
Download our new Category Brief that covers Functional Beverages.
Most functional beverage brands think they’re competing on ingredients.
They’re not. They’re competing on relevance — and many are losing without noticing.
We’ve just published a new Category Brief™: Functional Beverages, looking at how customer choice is shifting across North America and Europe. Not trends. Not tactics. The mechanics of why people choose one drink over another — and why so many brands are becoming interchangeable.
A few nuggets from the Brief:
Function is everywhere. Meaning is scarce.
Ingredients no longer differentiate. Felt benefit and identity fit do.Consumers aren’t choosing categories — they’re choosing moments.
Your real competitors may be supplements, coffee rituals, sleep aids, or doing nothing.Wellness has fragmented.
Calm, focus, discipline, softness, performance — there is no single “healthy” narrative anymore.Premium survives only when value is emotionally justified.
Clean labels aren’t enough. People need to feel the benefit — fast.
This free Brief is a short-form intelligence snapshot — designed to help leaders see where the Relevance Gap™ is opening in the category.
For clients, we go much further.
Our Strategic Intelligence subscription includes:
In-depth category and demand-side reports
A specific lens on your brand, your offering, and your ideal customer profiles
Ongoing signal monitoring across our Five Forces
Live briefing sessions with leadership teams
And strategic interventions when relevance, growth, or positioning is at risk
The free Brief shows how we think.
The paid work is where this thinking gets applied — continuously, contextually, and decisively. We offer both one-off diagnosis and strategic interventions, as well as an ongoing “demand radar”, complemented with monthly briefs and interventions.
👉 Read the free Category Brief here
And if you’re responsible for growth, relevance, or long-term advantage — you’ll recognize why this matters now.
Clarity beats activity.
Judgment beats more data.
Choice beats noise.
— Tobias, Original Minds