Circana data has become an essential asset for consumer insights and brand strategy teams looking to drive clarity across complex portfolios. With visibility into market share, distribution, pricing, velocity, and shopper behavior – all down to the pack size and retailer level – Circana helps brands optimize their offerings and avoid internal competition.

Understanding What Portfolio Harmonization Means

Brand portfolio harmonization is the process of aligning each product in your portfolio with a unique and purposeful role. That often means reducing duplication, positioning SKUs strategically within channels, identifying high-margin opportunities, and aligning offerings with consumer needs. The goal is to find balance: not too much overlap, not too many gaps, and a clear reason for each item to exist.

How Circana Enables Strategic Portfolio Planning

With access to Circana’s vast dataset, teams can break down performance by brand, pack size, channel, region, and competitive set. This data enables organizations to:

• Detect brand overlap: Identify where different brands or SKUs are cannibalizing each other
• Perform white space analysis: Spot gaps in the category where new products or pack sizes could meet unmet needs
• Clarify pack size roles: Understand how different configurations perform by retailer, region, or usage occasion
• Prioritize investment: Direct innovation, marketing, and promo dollars toward items with the highest strategic value

For instance, a fictional beverage company reviewing Circana data might discover that two of its sparkling water SKUs appeal to the same audience, with similar velocities and nearly identical distribution footprints. By removing one and doubling down on the better-performing option, they can reduce complexity, save trade spend, and simplify the shelf for consumers.

Going Beyond the Dashboard

It’s not just about the reports. While most teams use Circana’s dashboards for performance tracking, the real value comes from translating that data into action. Strategic planning requires digging deeper – asking questions like: Should this pack size exist in multiple brands? Are we missing opportunities in convenience stores? What’s our overlap with competitors?

Knowing how to extract this level of insight is where On Demand Talent can make a difference. These professionals can step in to help teams move from raw data to actionable strategy, ensuring that Circana is being used to its full potential in your portfolio harmonization efforts.

As DIY research tools become increasingly popular, many insights and brand strategy teams are turning to them to generate quick answers in-house. Platforms like Circana’s dashboards and other syndicated data portals offer an appealing promise: instant access to market data without the need for complex custom research. However, the growing reliance on these tools often reveals key limitations, especially when tackling something as nuanced as portfolio design.

Challenge 1: Data Without Direction

One of the most common pain points is simply not knowing how to interpret the data. Circana platforms display vast amounts of information, but many DIY users struggle with knowing what to look for. The dashboards show what’s happening, but not necessarily why – or what to do next. For example, a team may notice stagnant sales in a core SKU, but is that result due to overlap, shifting consumer preferences, or declining channel relevance?

Without deep category knowledge and analytical experience, teams risk misinterpreting the metrics, leading to either inaction or the wrong action.

Challenge 2: Overlooking White Space and Role Clarity

Surface-level data exploration often misses strategic insights like white space opportunities or conflicting product roles. DIY tools are designed for reporting, not interpretation. This can make it difficult to answer key portfolio questions, such as:

• Where are we duplicating value across brands or pack sizes?
• What consumer needs are under-addressed in our portfolio?
• Are we over-investing in low-margin or low-growth SKUs?

Understanding these nuances often requires cross-functional thinking, shopper behavior knowledge, and category context – skill sets not always present on stretched internal teams.

Challenge 3: Inefficient Use of DIY Tools

In many cases, companies invest heavily in syndicated data platforms but underutilize their capabilities. Either teams don’t have the time to dig in, or they lack the training to use advanced functionalities. This creates a gap between the value of the tool and how it's actually used. Dashboards remain passive trackers instead of engines for strategic insight.

This not only limits the return on investment in the platform, but also causes teams to rely on gut feel or legacy decisions instead of data-driven analysis.

Expert Support Can Bridge the Gap

The good news is that you don’t have to choose between full DIY or a full-service agency option. On Demand Talent fills the middle ground – bringing in flexible, senior-level experts who know how to stretch the value of tools like Circana. These professionals integrate seamlessly into your team, helping you:

• Translate data into strategic insights
• Build internal capabilities and train staff
• Accelerate portfolio decisions with confidence

Whether you need short-term guidance or project-based support, On Demand Talent allows you to stay agile while ensuring research quality and strategic focus. It’s a smart way to get more out of your tools – and unlock the full potential of your brand portfolio.

When using Circana data, one of the biggest opportunities for brand and insights teams is identifying unnecessary overlap between products while uncovering white space opportunities. Overlap occurs when multiple brands or pack sizes serve the same purpose or appeal to the same consumer, leading to internal competition rather than category growth. On the other hand, white space represents unmet consumer needs or untapped demand – areas where your brand can make strategic additions or innovations.

Why Overlap Happens in Portfolio Design

Overlap often results from siloed brand management, legacy product lines, or decisions made without holistic data views. It's not uncommon for different teams to launch similar SKUs without realizing they undercut each other in the same channel or shopper mission.

For example, a fictional beverage company might offer four slightly different 12-ounce flavored water options across two brands. While they may be positioned differently, Circana data analysis could show they primarily attract the same consumer and sell in the same channel – creating brand cannibalization.

How Circana Data Helps Spot Overlap

Circana's syndicated data and shopper insights tools can illuminate where brands or pack sizes are competing for the same volume. With the right approach, you can:

• Compare sales velocity and household penetration across brands and formats
• Map channel-specific preferences to identify where SKUs overlap in role
• Study consumer behavior to see if products serve different need states – or the same one

However, the challenge many teams face is that DIY research tools or dashboards don’t easily surface these kinds of portfolio dynamics. It requires deeper analysis and cross-functional interpretation – often beyond what automated platforms can provide.

Defining White Space with Strategic Clarity

White space analysis goes beyond brainstormed ideas or gut instinct. With Circana data, a strategic approach includes:

• Assessing consumer purchase gaps or unmet needs within the current portfolio
• Analyzing shopper segmentation to find groups underserved by current offerings
• Identifying formats, price tiers, or use occasions absent in your lineup

Pairing these insights with competitive intelligence from Circana enables smarter, data-driven innovation rather than flooding the market with new SKUs that create more overlap.

When used correctly, Circana data helps brands simplify choices for consumers, eliminate internal competition, and confidently enter new spaces with differentiated offerings.

While DIY dashboards offer access to valuable Circana data, using that data to steer strategic portfolio decisions is a different challenge. It’s not just about having data – it’s about knowing how to interpret it to define clear roles across your brands and products. That’s where expert-led research adds critical value.

The Importance of Role Clarity in a Brand Portfolio

Every product in your portfolio should play a distinct role. Some may act as traffic drivers in key retailers, others as premium trade-up options, and still others as gap-fillers for emerging consumer needs. Without clear role clarity, competing products can erode margins, confuse consumers, or lose shelf presence.

Circana data allows brands to analyze performance by channel, shopper segment, and pack format. But drawing the right conclusions about product roles requires strategic thinking that blends data with market knowledge and category dynamics.

Why Going It Alone Has Limits

DIY tools often lack the context needed to translate data into strategy. Many brands experience:

• Reports that show conflicting KPIs without guidance on trade-offs
• Dashboards that don't capture emerging consumer trends effectively
• Difficulty segmenting brands by role beyond sales volume or share

Without experienced consumer insights professionals guiding the process, teams risk misinterpreting data or defaulting to legacy assumptions that no longer hold up in today’s market.

What Experts Bring to Portfolio Harmonization

Expert-led research equips insights teams with the frameworks and techniques to:

• Clearly define the intended role of each brand and pack size based on consumer usage and occasion
• Align internal stakeholders on those roles and eliminate redundant offers
• Analyze performance beyond surface metrics to guide strategy with confidence

For instance, an insights professional might notice that a declining SKU actually still serves a vital role for a niche but loyal consumer group – leading to a repositioning strategy rather than a discontinuation.

Working with strategic experts ensures that portfolio harmonization isn't just a data exercise, but a strategic conversation backed by holistic insights. It’s this combination of analytics and interpretation that drives long-term brand equity and portfolio growth.

Managing portfolio harmonization through Circana data requires more than technical skills – it demands experienced perspective, agile problem-solving, and the ability to guide teams through complex decisions. That’s where On Demand Talent can make an immediate impact.

The Challenge: DIY Overload, Limited Bandwidth

As more businesses adopt DIY research platforms to move faster and control costs, internal teams are stretched thinner than ever. Many face a familiar dilemma:

• The data is there, but there's not enough time or expertise to maximize its value
• Hiring permanent staff or large agencies often requires months of lead time and long-term commitment
• Freelancers can offer speed but often lack category knowledge or experience working with specialized tools like Circana

This is where flexible access to skilled professionals makes all the difference.

What On Demand Talent Offers

SIVO’s On Demand Talent solution connects businesses with seasoned consumer insights professionals who can jump in quickly – often within days – to support high-impact research projects like portfolio optimization. These experts:

• Bring deep experience in tools like Circana and syndicated data sources
• Know how to extract and interpret insights that go beyond surface metrics
• Advise on strategic decisions such as pack size optimization, brand role alignment, and innovation whitespace
• Work flexibly to match your project scope, timelines, and team structure

Unlike generic consultants or short-term freelancers, On Demand Talent are vetted professionals who understand the nuances of research and category dynamics across industries.

Fast, Flexible Support Without Sacrificing Quality

Whether you need help defining product roles, conducting white space analysis, or translating Circana data into action, On Demand Talent can fill knowledge or bandwidth gaps without disrupting your team or hiring timelines. It’s the best of both worlds – expert advice at startup speed, backed by a network that knows what high-quality insights look like.

As market pressures push teams toward DIY tools and leaner budgets, On Demand Talent ensures those tools are used strategically – combining speed, skill, and scalable support to get the most out of your data investments.