A brand manager learns her category got 2% and another got 67% — and accepts it, because the reason was on the table before the number. That is how I allocated Pronaca's marketing investment across thirty brands: every line somebody's plan, every allocation with a rule behind it.
An allocation is a strategy stated in its most honest form. A category cannot receive +67% on a feeling, and one held at +2% needs an explanation its brand manager can repeat to their own team without resentment. This is the year that argument was made, line by line.
Every line grows with its revenue. Nobody argues, nothing changes, and the categories under attack stay under-funded.
Money follows the strategic job: entering a category, shielding a flank, defending leadership. Somebody has to be told no.
Canned fish took +67% because entering a new category needs disproportionate money or it does not land. An economy cold-cuts brand took +102% because cheaper rivals were taking share and the portfolio had no answer at that price. Preserves held at +2% because the problem there was product, not noise.
Growth rates in a budget are the strategy in its most honest form: the categories being defended, the ones being pushed, and the ones being asked to hold.
| Line | Total 2022 | vs 2021 | The reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fish & seafood | $3XX K | +67% | Entering canned fish — a new category needs disproportionate money or it does not land |
| Cold cuts — La Danesa | $1XX K | +102% | An economy shield: cheaper rivals were taking share and the portfolio had no answer at that price |
| Chicken | $1.XX M | +38% | Leadership plus the innovation line — defending the largest category in the house |
| Corporate marketing | $2.XX M | +37% | The owned-media estate, CRM and consumer service, funded as infrastructure |
| Eggs | $5X K | +30% | Small budget, specific job: defend supermarket shelf |
| Pork | $1.XX M | +16% | Habit and frequency, on the back of the repositioning |
| Preserves | $6XX K | +2% | Hold — the category was under quality pressure and the answer was product, not noise |
Selected lines from the 2022 plan. Total company marketing investment: $11.XX M, up 18% on a 2021 projection of $9.XX M. Figures are shown to the magnitude and masked beyond it — the scale is what makes the case; a former employer's exact budget is theirs, not mine to publish.
direct to line
trade marketing
vice-presidencies funded from one plan
year-on-year growth in total investment
National and international agencies, on scope, fees and performance. A media plan inherited unchanged from last year is not a plan, it is an annuity.
Negotiated directly rather than delegated. The person who signs the plan should understand what each line buys.
More than $1.2 M in TRPs bought in advance, negotiated directly with the television channels across prime time and the daily schedule, with the media agency's support.
Roughly 80/20 across the portfolio, but deliberately unequal by line — preserves ran 65% trade, because that category is won in the aisle.
Price, mix, pack and promotion treated as one system. The conversation where marketing stops requesting budget and starts arguing about margin.
Brand equity and product testing carried their own budget line, so the tracking survived the years when the campaign needed the money.
The most useful thing about running an allocation this size is that it forces the strategy to be legible. A category cannot get +67% on a feeling, and a category holding at +2% needs an explanation its brand manager can repeat to their own team without resentment.
That is the part of the job that transfers anywhere: not the size of the number, but having stood in front of the room that had to live with it.
Role of each medium, priority per brand, written down.
Reallocation on performance, quarter by quarter.
The rule decides; the meeting confirms.