Where are the Consumers?

When Consumer Package Goods companies pay most of their attention to shareholders, then retailers, and finally their consumers, the consumers suffer.  By the way, where are employees (Waldo?) in the picture?
When I started in the industry, it attracted great people passionate about products and building businesses long-term.  We would talk about making short-term trade offs to make the business sustainable.  Value creation is about Innovation and solving problems for the consumers we intend to serve.  If the products are helpful and worthwhile, consumers will reward them with healthy pricing and margin.
If companies are disciplined about the process and positive feedback loop, they don’t need to buy volume or short term sales.  The focus will be on creating and expanding categories and market share will take care of itself.
The alternative, Zero-sum game is a downward spiral.  Short-term targets force leaders to borrow or starve future growth. Reduction in investments in innovation and people brings some relief (for the quarter?) but ironically further reduce options to grow.   That in turn leaves them with bad or worse compensating mechanisms to comp an even more challenging base period in the future.  Me-too products, high promotional volume and low capital investments are all symptoms of an industry that has lost its way.
That is actually the most significant backdrop for smaller Direct to Consumer brands, whose focused game is about delighting consumers in their niche, investing on products and people, building relationships and communities.  They set goals that are consumer-driven and not purely financial.  Growth is as much about sales as learning and becoming even better at serving their customers.
We are all consumers. Who would you rather support?