Category decline is a perception problem, not a product one

It’s one thing for a brand to succeed in a growing category; quite another to succeed in a declining one. Rarer still are brands that help reverse the category’s fortunes.

 

Take Inch’s. When it launched in 2021, the UK’s traditional apple cider market was declining by 1.7% a year, rising to 12% among under-28s. Within four years, Inch’s had taken 6.9% of the cider market and achieved the highest value share growth of any UK cider. Meanwhile, the cider market grew from £1.92 billion in 2021 to £2.39 billion in 2025.

 

What changed wasn’t cider’s fundamental proposition, but how people saw it.

 

The same pattern shows up elsewhere: Oatly repositioned oat milk as sustainable and craveable; new world wines such as Barefoot Wine reframed a traditional and exclusive category with a more easy-going, ‘for anyone’ approach; while Swatch reinvented the desirable, stylish timepiece as an affordable fashion accessory.

 

Categories naturally get tired, times and people move on, and when that happens, businesses will naturally look to product development for the answer. But a stagnant category doesn’t mean the product isn’t still valuable; it’s just that it has lost its front-of-mind relevance.

 

That is why the solution isn’t to change what the product is; it’s to reframe what it’s for. Category decline is a perception problem, and reversing it requires investment in brand and design – to give consumers a reason to see something familiar differently. And the prizes are big for those who do it.

 

Cultural relevance from category insight

Category insight tells you the table stakes: what consumers recognise and what you need to do differently from competitors. Culture tells you how to be different.

 

That means starting with people rather than the brand: how they behave, what they value and the rituals forming around the way they shop, eat or socialise. It’s a culture-in rather than brand-out approach.

 

Mainstream premium cider had become particularly parochial. Brands such as Thatchers, Westons and Aspall traded heavily on family, heritage and tradition. But those aren’t necessarily the associations you want when you’re having relaxed, sunny good times with friends. Much as craft beer made beer feel more cared-for and contemporary, cider needed to lose some of its historical baggage.

 

Inch’s flipped those conventions. Its bright identity, conversational tone and hand-drawn illustration created something sunny, relaxed and consciously sustainable, designed for carefree occasions in pubs, parks and homes. The wider category returned to growth, but Inch’s benefited most.

 

Olipop has done something similar with functional drinks. Health drinks once tended towards the scientific and functional. But health has moved out of the niche and into everyday culture. Olipop responded with colourful, playful design, nostalgic soda cues and a taste-led proposition that makes functionality feel like an easy-going part of everyday life.

 

Breaking free of category occasions

Categories can also become trapped by the occasions associated with them, particularly as the boundaries between categories disappear.

 

A cider isn’t simply competing against another cider anymore. It could be competing with beer, wine, an RTD, or a non-alcoholic drink. Brands therefore need to understand the mood and emotional drivers around an occasion rather than concentrating solely on their traditional competitive set.

 

Modern socialising is increasingly fluid and informal, making it harder for brands to occupy one rigid time, place or occasion. For a declining category, breaking out of those assumptions can create entirely new reasons to consider it.

 

Athletic Brewing provides a clear example. When it launched in 2018, non-alcoholic beer represented just 0.3% of US beer sales and had seen little meaningful innovation for decades. Rather than presenting alcohol-free beer as a consolation for people who couldn’t drink, Athletic built its brand around active lifestyles: keeping the social ritual of beer without alcohol.

 

By 2024, Athletic held more than 19% of the US non-alcoholic beer market and was driving 32% of its growth – and the wider category had grown to around 2% of global beer sales.

 

Bring flair to the facts

Reframing a category cannot simply mean attaching a brand to whatever is culturally relevant. It has to be rooted in something credible. But facts alone rarely make people care. Design, personality and tone of voice turn what is valuable about a category into something people actually want.

 

Banking provides a good example. Traditional banks had become associated with imposing institutions, hidden costs and doing finance on their terms. Monzo and Revolut didn’t change the fundamental need for somewhere to manage your money. They followed a technology culture that was putting greater control into individuals’ hands, reframing banking through intuitive apps, instant information and a more approachable identity as something that worked on the customer’s terms.

 

Apple achieved something similar with computing. In the 1990s, the category was still dominated by grey, functional machines associated with office work and processing information. Yet people were increasingly using computers to make music, design and create. Apple reframed the computer around that emerging reality: not simply a tool for doing sums and processing words, but an expression of creativity.

 

There is a risk in successfully changing perceptions. Once a brand demonstrates a new way forward, competitors will follow. The pioneer therefore needs to retain the distinctiveness that made people notice it in the first place; otherwise it creates value for the category without capturing enough of that value itself.

 

That’s the balance for brands in tired categories. Don’t change what the product is simply for the sake of novelty; reframe what it’s for. Culture can make people see familiar categories with new eyes, whether that’s drinks, finance or technology, by reminding them why they valued the product in the first place while making it relevant more often for modern life.

 

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Ed Hayes is Chief Strategy Officer at Bloom

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com and matdesign24