Smart Media for Challenger Brands: A Guide to Spending Your Marketing Budget

Challenger FMCG brands are under more pressure than ever. Rising acquisition costs, fragmented channels, increased retailer demands, and tighter margins mean there’s very little room for marketing inefficiency. And yet, almost every founder I speak to asks the same question:

“Where should we spend our marketing budget?”

It sounds simple, but it isn’t. Because the right answer depends entirely on where your brand truly sits in its lifecycle. We look to anchor the decision-making process to two metrics that reveal more about your growth readiness than any other:

Weighted Distribution: Your Physical Availability

This is your foundation. Without it, even the most brilliant creative or media plan won’t convert. If fewer than 1 in 5 potential buyers can realistically find your product, pouring spend into national awareness rarely pays back.

Distribution isn’t glamorous, but in challenger brand growth, it’s your oxygen.

Prompted Brand Awareness: Your Mental Availability

Even with excellent distribution, growth stalls if shoppers don’t recognise you. Mental availability is the shortcut to penetration, and penetration is the only reliable predictor of FMCG brand growth.

Why the Relationship Between the Two Matters

We see the same pattern repeatedly:

Low distribution + high awareness = wasted spend 

You’ve created demand that can’t convert.

High distribution + low awareness = stagnation 

You’ve built the system but no one’s entering it.

High distribution + rising awareness = efficient growth 

This is where challenger brands break through.

The 20/30/50 Rule

A loose but helpful guide for FMCG challengers:

• c.20% weighted distribution → Focus on availability and retailer expansion 

• 30%–50% weighted distribution → Start layering awareness 

• 50%+ distribution → Awareness becomes essential to maintain momentum

This aligns closely with the themes highlighted in The Grocer’s Challenger 50: the brands growing well are not the ones spending the most; they’re the ones spending in sequence.

Smart Media: Test Before You Scale

A major shift we’re seeing is the rise of low-commitment, self-serve or flexible media platforms that allow FMCG scaleups to test awareness-driving activity without the high cost of traditional ATL.

Some of the most useful for challenger brands are:

CAASie

Caasie is a self-serve DOOH platform giving you on-demand access to digital screens. Perfect for city-by-city tests, new retailer launches, or controlled reach experiments.

Bauer Media Outdoor

Bauer is a national network of OOH and DOOH formats across the UK. Useful once distribution supports broader mental availability building.

OOhYes 

OohYes is an OOH specialist who are ideal for brands ready for multi-format planning and cross-city rollouts.

These platforms allow brands to build awareness gradually, responsibly, and with data, not guesswork.

The OSER Philosophy

Challenger growth is not about burning budget to “look big.” It’s about sequencing:

1. Build physical availability

2. Layer mental availability

3. Test small

4. Scale deliberately

5. Protect creative quality

6. Invest when the brand is ready

It’s a framework built to maximise momentum, and it’s the way the most successful challenger brands are operating today.

If you’re considering OOH, DOOH or broader awareness activity and want a quick test-first plan that is the most cost-efficient for your budget, we can help map the smartest options for your stage.

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