Customer Marketing Group

What Customer Marketing Group does

Customer Marketing Group (CMG) is a privately held management consulting firm, founded circa 1994–1998 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, that helps consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of their retail customer investments. The firm focuses exclusively on three integrated service pillars: Distribution (slotting dollar management and distribution planning), Pricing (headquarter and field pricing recommendations, price elasticity analysis, and margin management), and Promotion (promotional impact analysis, shopper marketing optimization, and in-store execution). Its go-to-market is sales-led and direct: CMG engages with CPG brand executives from board level down to field sales through custom consulting engagements priced on a quote basis, with no publicly disclosed fee structure or software product. The firm is run by a small senior team — Chairman & CEO Stew Bishop (former Quaker Oats and Bayer Consumer HealthCare), President Pat Muldoon (former CEO of multiple CPG companies), and Chief Data Scientist Jeff Lovering (MS in Mathematics/Finance/Econometrics) — supported by several senior and junior business analysts.

CMG's underlying technology is a set of proprietary analytical methods rather than a packaged software platform. The team applies econometric modeling, game theory, and trade-spending optimization algorithms (developed in R) to evaluate promotional impact, estimate price elasticities, and run customer-level P&L and scenario analyses. There is no public API, no SDK, no mobile app, and no disclosed integrations; the IP is concentrated in the firm's methodologies, cross-category learnings, and the cross-client dataset accumulated over 30+ named CPG engagements led by the Chief Data Scientist alone, with 40+ named current and former clients overall. Marketing and demand generation are driven by a content-marketing blog, client referrals, and named testimonials from brands such as Halo Top Creamery, Daiya Foods, Good Karma, Plum Organics, Orgain, Bertolli/Deoleo, Weleda North America, Horizon Organic, and Forward Foods. The company operates from Austin, a San Francisco office, and serves the U.S. CPG market with no disclosed international footprint, and it is privately held with no evidence of outside private equity or venture capital backing.

Name

Customer Marketing Group

Legal name

Customer Marketing Group

Website

https://customermarketinggroup.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1998

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Customer Marketing Group is a private U.S. consulting firm that helps consumer packaged goods brands optimize retail customer investments across distribution, pricing, and promotion through econometric modeling, game theory, and CPG industry expertise.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

The Woodlands

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Consulting and Advisory Services: Professional consulting services helping CPG brands optimize retail customer investments including trade spending, pricing, promotion, and distribution management. Services provided by dedicated team of analysts and practitioners who help clients navigate the rapidly evolving retail environment.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

CMG provides professional consulting services that help consumer packaged goods brands maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of their retail customer investments. The firm offers three integrated service pillars — Distribution Services (managing slotting dollars and developing realistic distribution plans), Pricing Services (actionable recommendations for headquarter and field pricing objectives including everyday pricing, price elasticity, and margin management), and Promotion Services (rigorous analytical methods to manage in-store execution and shopper marketing objectives).

Product overview

Customer Marketing Group offers a unified consulting service focused on optimizing retail customer investments for consumer packaged goods brands. The company provides three integrated service pillars: Distribution Services (managing slotting dollars and distribution planning), Pricing Services (headquarter and field pricing recommendations), and Promotion Services (promotional analysis and shopper marketing optimization). These services work together to help CPG brands maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of all retailer-related activity and spending across both brick-and-mortar and ecommerce channels.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Distribution Services A consulting service that helps CPG brands achieve profitable growth by evaluating and managing distribution decisions at the regional and national level. CMG provides slotting dollar management and develops realistic, mutually beneficial distribution plans that organically grow a brand's presence across retailers.
• Pricing Services A consulting service that advises CPG brands in planning, negotiating, and executing pricing decisions that reflect shelf realities. CMG provides customized analysis for everyday pricing, price elasticity analysis, and margin management to support both headquarter-driven and field pricing objectives.
• Promotion Services A consulting service that delivers rigorous analytical methods combined with decades of learnings to help CPG brands better manage the purchase environment. CMG provides promotional impact assessment, in-store execution optimization, and shopper marketing support across multiple categories, channels, and retailers.

Quantifiable outcome

• Helped brands improve efficiency and effectiveness of marketing/trade spending to have greater marketplace impact
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers9 records

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability2 records

Feature5 records

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves4 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Regional players

• C.A. Fortune: A US-based CPG-focused retail sales, brokerage, and marketing services firm. Comparable to CMG in serving CPG trade and retail execution needs within the US market, but with a different mix of brokerage, retail sales, and activation services alongside consulting.

Broad incumbents

• Numerator: A consumer data and analytics company providing omnichannel purchase data and CPG insights. Comparable to CMG in delivering CPG trade and shopper analytics, but as a data-platform incumbent rather than a focused consulting firm.
• Circana: A large retail and CPG data, analytics, and advisory platform formed from the merger of IRI and the NPD Group. Overlaps with CMG in CPG trade and pricing analytics but operates as a broad data/tech incumbent with software, panels, and managed services rather than a focused consulting practice.
• NielsenIQ: A global retail measurement and consumer intelligence company that serves CPG brands with category, pricing, and promotion analytics. Comparable in its CPG trade analytics depth but operates as a broad data/incumbent rather than a specialized consulting firm like CMG.
• Acosta: A leading CPG sales and marketing services company providing retail execution, category management, and trade marketing support. Comparable to CMG on CPG trade and retail execution advisory but operates as a broad services incumbent rather than a focused consultancy.
• Advantage Solutions: A large sales and marketing agency that provides CPG brands with retail sales, category management, and shopper marketing services. Comparable in serving CPG trade and category management needs, but at much greater scale and breadth than CMG's boutique consulting model.
• Kantar: A global market research and consulting firm with a strong CPG practice covering brand, pricing, and shopper insights. Comparable in its CPG analytics and advisory work, but at much greater scale and with a broader portfolio of research products than CMG.

Direct peers

• WSL Strategic Retail: A retail and shopper marketing consultancy that advises CPG brands and retailers on pricing, promotion, and category strategies. Directly comparable to CMG on consulting methodology, target buyer (CPG commercial leaders), and emphasis on translating shopper insight into trade investment decisions.
• Mars & Co: A boutique strategy consulting firm with a long-standing specialization in CPG and retail commercial strategy. Comparable to CMG in its narrow CPG/retail focus, high-touch senior-led engagement model, and use of rigorous analytical methods to drive pricing and trade decisions.
• Insights Now: A CPG-focused consumer insights and analytics consultancy that helps packaged goods brands make shopper- and category-driven decisions. Highly comparable to CMG in its analytics-first, CPG-exclusive positioning and its reliance on advanced modeling to optimize marketing and trade decisions.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/CustomerMktgGrp

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles9 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Customer Marketing Group