C3Centricity supports mid-sized (and larger!) business executives in reigniting the momentum of their companies and careers.

We do this through publishing books such as Winning Customer Centricity and The Winning Secrets Series, as well as regular articles and courses on getting promoted, CX and UX.

Our blog has been one of the top places these executives depend on for exciting and forward-thinking ideas about growing their careers and organisations.

Since we founded C3Centricity in early 2011, one of our traditions has been to share the most popular posts of the previous twelve months, at the beginning of each new year. 

This past year has been particularly successful for C3Centricity, with many of our newest posts getting top scores globally! This is quite tough for a blog that has been running for almost 15 years and highlights the quality of the content we share each month.

This also explains why our posts are republished on other esteemed sites such as CustomerThink where we rank in the top ten authors on Leadership, Digital Marketing, CX, Customer Analytics and Customer Loyalty.

If any of these topics are of interest to you, you really should be following us so you don’t miss out on the latest global thinking.

If you prefer to listen to our articles, rather than reading them:

1) The Power of Emotional Intelligence in Driving Career and Company Momentum

Executive summary:
Emotional intelligence is one of the fastest ways to raise the performance of a team without adding headcount, budget, or another tool. Leaders with strong EQ see trouble earlier, defuse tension faster, and keep decisions moving when everyone else is stuck in politics, defensiveness, or silence. That matters in CPG because complexity is baked in. Cross-functional priorities collide, timelines are tight, retailers push back, and consumers move faster than internal processes. This post breaks down how EQ shows up in real work: handling conflict without damage, giving feedback that actually changes behaviour, staying calm under pressure, and keeping people accountable without creating fear. The result is simple. Better execution, better collaboration, and better outcomes.

Read this if you want a quick win to reignite your career and company momentum:

• Learn the practical EQ behaviours that make teams faster and more reliable
• Stop “alignment meetings” from becoming energy drains and decision graveyards
• Improve influence upward and sideways, even without formal authority

2) Top 10 Challenges of Mid-Sized CPG Companies: Insights, Statistics and Real-World Solutions

Executive summary:
Mid-sized CPG firms live in a tough middle zone. Big enough to have complexity, not big enough to absorb expensive mistakes. Growth often stalls for reasons that feel disconnected, yet are usually linked. Consumer understanding gets patchy, innovation pipelines get noisy, retailer demands increase, and internal ways of working become heavier than they should be. This post lays out the ten challenges that show up again and again, plus the real-world fixes that don’t require a Fortune 500 budget. It’s designed to help leadership teams stop guessing and start focusing on the few constraints that are actually slowing the business down.

Read this if you want a clear “where to focus” map to reignite your career and company momentum:

• Spot the real bottlenecks behind slow growth and wasted effort
• Get practical solutions you can apply with your current team
• Bring structure to leadership discussions that are currently opinion-led

3) Top 10 Challenges Facing Companies When They Adopt a Customer-First Strategy

Executive summary:
“Customer-first” is one of the easiest strategies to announce and one of the hardest to execute. Most organisations fail because they treat it like a marketing statement, not a business operating system. Incentives reward internal metrics, not consumer outcomes. Functions protect their turf. Data grows, clarity shrinks. Even when people agree with the idea, they don’t know what to do differently on Monday morning. This post walks through the ten adoption traps that kill momentum, including cultural resistance, inconsistent leadership behaviour, weak prioritisation, and lack of operational follow-through. It also points to what makes customer-first stick, so it becomes real, measurable, and visible to consumers.

Read this if you want “customer-first” to stop being a slogan:

• Identify the exact failure points before they waste a year of effort
• Create clarity on what must change in behaviours, decisions, and processes
• Turn customer-first into practical actions that improve experience and growth

4) 10 Key Questions CPG Leaders Should Ask About Customer-First Strategies for Expanded Loyalty

Executive summary:
Loyalty is rarely lost because a competitor “out-marketed” you. Loyalty fades when the experience becomes inconsistent, confusing, or not worth repeating. Leaders often talk about loyalty at a high level while teams struggle with the specifics that drive repeat purchase and trust. This post gives ten leadership questions that cut through surface-level strategy and expose whether the organisation truly understands what consumers value, what they struggle with, and what needs to change across product, pack, comms, service, and retail execution. Each question is designed to force clarity, sharpen choices, and guide investment where it will actually change behaviour.

Read this if you want loyalty that survives price pressure:

• Use the ten questions to stress-test your current strategy fast
• Expose gaps between what leaders believe and what consumers experience
• Create a stronger roadmap for repeat purchase, trust, and recommendation

5) The Essential Customer-Centric Mission Statement for Achieving Success

Executive summary:
Mission statements often sound good and change nothing because they are too generic to guide real decisions. A customer-centric mission should act like a compass: it tells teams what matters, what to prioritise, and what to stop doing. It also makes trade-offs easier because everyone can pressure-test decisions against the same “why” and “for whom.” This post explains what separates a mission statement that sits on a wall from one that shapes culture, decisions, and experience. It also shows how to anchor your mission in real consumer outcomes, so it becomes useful for marketing, innovation, sales, and leadership, not just brand storytelling.

Read this if you want a mission statement people actually use:

• Turn vague language into a mission that drives day-to-day choices
• Reduce internal confusion by setting a clear consumer outcome target
• Strengthen consistency across teams, brands, and execution

6) 7 Proven Strategies Successful CPG Brands Use to Build Unbreakable Consumer Loyalty

Executive summary:
Loyalty is built in the moments most brands ignore. The first use. The second use. The “I’m not sure how to…” moment. The small frustrations that quietly turn into switching behaviour. This post breaks loyalty down into seven practical strategies that successful brands apply consistently. The focus is not on theory, but on repeatable actions: removing friction, building confidence, delivering proof, and creating experiences that make the next purchase feel obvious. The point is simple. Many brands buy trial, then leak value right after. Fixing the loyalty chain is often cheaper and faster than spending more to bring new people in.

Read this if you want more repeat purchase without more media spend:

• Identify the hidden “loyalty leaks” happening after first purchase
• Apply seven practical moves that build confidence and habit
• Strengthen retention by improving real-life consumer experience

7) Why Hyper-Personalisation Matters in Delighting Your Consumers

Executive summary:
Personalisation is one of the most overused words in marketing, and one of the quickest ways to damage trust when done badly. Hyper-personalisation works when it feels like service, not surveillance. Consumers reward relevance, but they punish creepiness, repetition, and pointless targeting. This post explains what “good” personalisation looks like in practice, where brands go wrong, and how to design personalisation that actually improves experience. The key is choosing the right moments, using the right signals, and delivering value that consumers can feel, not just a clever algorithm.

Read this if you want personalisation that people don’t hate:

• Learn how to make personalisation feel helpful, not invasive
• Avoid the common mistakes that create fatigue and distrust
• Pick high-impact use cases that improve loyalty and experience

8) Mastering 2025’s Top Consumer Trends: Practical Strategies for CPG to Thrive in 25

Executive summary:
Trend reports are everywhere. Action is not. Teams get stuck because trends feel broad, abstract, or contradictory, so nothing changes and the same plans roll forward. This post translates key consumer trends into practical choices CPG teams can make, from portfolio and pricing to innovation and communication. It’s designed for leaders who want to move beyond observation and take action with confidence. The emphasis is on what trends mean for behaviour, what they signal about trust and value, and how brands can respond without chasing shiny objects.

Read this if you want trends that turn into revenue by regigniting your career and company momentum:

• Convert trend noise into a short, usable action list
• Make faster decisions on innovation, messaging, and channel priorities
• Stay relevant by responding to behaviour shifts before competitors do

9) Measure Customer Delight and Prove Its Impact on Brand Loyalty

Executive summary:
Many organisations say they care about delight, but don’t measure it in a way leaders trust. The result is predictable. Experience improvements get deprioritised because they look “nice to have” rather than commercial. This post tackles the measurement problem head-on. It explains how to measure delight with signals that connect to loyalty and repeat purchase, not vague satisfaction scores. The focus is on building a measurement approach that is specific enough to guide action and credible enough to drive investment decisions.

Read this if you want to stop guessing what “delight” is worth:

• Build a practical way to measure delight that leaders will believe
• Link experience improvements to repeat purchase and retention signals
• Prioritise the few changes most likely to move loyalty outcomes

10) How Influencer Marketing Is Redefining Consumer Engagement and Market Success

Executive summary:
Influencer marketing has shifted. The brands winning with it today treat it as part of the consumer journey, not a bolt-on awareness tactic. The brands losing treat it like a volume game and hope reach turns into sales. This post explains what’s changed, what still works, and how to make influencer activity commercially meaningful. It also covers the risks: weak brand fit, credibility damage, measurement confusion, and the temptation to chase vanity metrics. The aim is to help CPG teams use influencers with discipline, so the spend drives trust, trial, and repeat.

Read this if you want influencer spend to deliver business results and reignite your career and company momentum:

• Understand what’s actually working now, beyond “more creators”
• Choose creators and formats that strengthen credibility and conversion
• Tie influencer activity to meaningful metrics, not just impressions

Was your favourite article among these Top Ten Most Popular Posts on C3Centricity in 2025? If not, add yours in the comments and explain why.

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