REVENUE STRATEGY & LEADERSHIP

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The news that Chipotle was making moves into Mexico got us talking here at Revenue Brew. The fast-casual brand has spent 30 years growing to over 4,000 nationwide locations and a household name. But as we mentioned in our original article, taking a bet on the country that inspired your success doesn’t always work out (read more about Taco Bell’s Mexico misadventure here).

So how can Chipotle crack the code and satisfy the Mexican palate? We asked Guilherme Nami, partner and member of the global consumer and retail practice at Simon-Kucher, who’s led growth initiatives across Latin America.

Creating authenticity: One word Nami emphasized during his examination of Chipotle was “authentic.” Specifically, the brand’s decision to enter the market with local partner Alsea stood out to him.

“That shows respect for the local heritage and says out loud: ‘We are not trying to show Mexicans what good Mexican food is,’” Nami wrote.

While he praised Chipotle’s “test-and-learn” approach as a good first step, he said Chipotle and Alsea needed to create a clear set of differentiators to fulfill the desires of the Mexican consumer.

“Where do they fit within the constellation of offerings that exist throughout the country?” Nami asked.

Cooking like a local: Nami also acknowledged that adapting to specific territories in the region will be a challenge, citing McDonald’s approach to different geographies.

“Underneath a consistent brand identity, you always need some degree of adaptation to local markets. Just look at the fact that McDonald’s sells fried, bone-in chicken wings in Peru, Panama, and other countries in the region with strong wings [and] chicken cultures,” Nami wrote.

He believes Alsea is aware of this and that the adjustment process will take “2–3 years.”

Putting all the chips on the table: According to Nami, Mexico’s food culture, its relationship with the US, and its large and relatively young population makes the country an attractive market. (In recent years, younger consumers have helped power Chipotle sales.)

“Even if the positioning in Mexico will likely not be of ‘authentic’ Mexican food, imagine the bragging rights Chipotle could claim by having the seal of approval of Mexicans themselves,” Nami wrote.—BS

      

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REVENUE STRATEGY & LEADERSHIP

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Dietary supplements are in. From vitamin D and fish oil all the way to creatine and colostrum, over 100,000 different supplement variations serve as the foundation for a $70 billion market in the United States alone.

A boom in the wellness industry since the pandemic has provided a lasting tailwind (it was worth $6.8 trillion in 2024, according to the Global Wellness Institute), and a favorable regulatory backdrop hasn’t hurt either. The FDA does not preapprove dietary supplements, which under the US Dietary Supplement and Education Act are categorized as foods rather than as pharmaceuticals, before they’re sold. As a result, most regulatory action takes place after products are already on the market.

More broadly, the trend toward holistic health and lifestyle choices has proven fertile ground for entrepreneurs, athletes, and innovators of all stripes. Enter IM8: Co-founded by serial entrepreneur Danny Yeung and soccer icon David Beckham, the daily nutrition drink powder has been on a tear, surpassing $108 million in annualized recurring revenue (ARR) just 11 months after launching late 2024.

Revenue Brew spoke with Yeung about how he’s using credibility and effective partnerships to ensure long-term growth.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The supplement space is known for being saturated and unregulated. How have you approached the market to break through the noise?

We knew going into it that we wanted to set the bar very high. That meant starting with a great scientific advisory board…We went out to recruit the best we could. These are physicians, scientists, and professors from the Mayo Clinic, from Cedars-Sinai, even the former chief scientist of NASA, so we had an amazing scientific advisory board to start with. Then we then had all these individuals create the formulation with the best ingredients, best actives, best form factors. We came up with 90+ ingredients and we made nutrition and supplementation easy.

Read on for the role regulation plays in the supplements space.—BS

      

BRAND STRATEGY

Charlene Polite Corley

Charlene Polite Corley, VP, content and insights, Nielsen Global Marketing, is set to speak at the upcoming Marketing Brew Summit on September 30. Ahead of the event, we caught up with her to hear about why representation is critical to winning attention and developing fandoms.

What do you think most marketers get wrong in their advertising today?

I think treating inclusion as optional instead of as a growth strategy is a miss. Representation isn’t just a top-of-funnel “feel good” metric; it’s an essential step in winning attention and driving conversion. For example, Black audiences average about two hours more a week online than the average consumer, but over 60% of Black audiences want more representation in ads online, often feeling misrepresented.

Where do you see the biggest gap between how marketers think audiences behave and how they actually behave?

One great example is fandoms. This is still an untapped element of identity, connection, and community for many audiences. Fandoms are chosen cultures. Anime offers a great case study for this: Over 45 billion minutes of anime content were streamed in the US last year. That is absolutely mainstream.

Five years from now, what’s the marketing “best practice” of today that you think we’ll all look back on and cringe at?

I do think the pace with which we are trusting, deploying, and displacing with AI is going to feel unbelievable once we’re able to pause and do an assessment of the impact. I’m curious to see how trust, loyalty, and brand health continue to evolve in this new normal.

Keep reading for the importance of insights, intuition, and integration.—EB

      

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active pipeline

Stat: 0.3%. That’s how much beef sales fell YoY in the 13 weeks ending in mid-July, an indication of consumers’ wariness over rising prices. (Bloomberg)

Quote: “I think it is fundamentally a crisis of trust. I think that ordinary people don’t trust companies, governments, or the tech industry and always suspect that we are cooking up some new way to screw them over.”—Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei (TechCrunch)

Read: Sick of AI slop? So are the tech giants. (the New York Times)

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