Nestlé bets big on social-first brand building and a shorter list of 'power brands'
Updated: Sep 1
Nestlé, the world's largest food and drink company, is making an unusually clear statement about where growth comes from: brands. The group has raised its advertising and marketing investment to 8.6% of sales in 2025, up 50 basis points year on year, even as commodity costs and margin pressure squeeze the wider sector.
Doing less, but doing it harder
Behind the spending increase is a deliberate narrowing of focus. Nestlé wants its strategic 'power brands' and platforms to grow from around 10% to 30% of sales, concentrating marketing money and innovation on the names most capable of scaling. On group sales of CHF 89.5bn and organic growth of 3.5% in 2025, the company is prioritising real internal growth — actual volume — which accelerated from 0.2% in the first half to 1.4% in the second.
That discipline has a cost. The underlying trading operating profit margin slipped to 16.1%, partly because of the heavier marketing outlay. Nestlé is betting that spending into brand strength now buys durable pricing power and loyalty later — a classic long-term brand-building argument, made with a very large cheque.
A social-first operating model
The more interesting shift is how the money is being spent. Nestlé is rebuilding its marketing model around a 'digital, social-first media landscape', standing up content studios, leaning on data analytics and tightening ROI measurement to reach audiences that have fragmented across platforms. The proof points are already visible: KitKat has become the official chocolate bar of Formula 1 and its 825-million-strong fan base, Nescafé has partnered with TikTok creator Zach King and his 185-million-plus followers, and Nespresso has run a collaboration with The Weeknd across 25 markets.
Chief executive Philipp Navratil has framed the approach as coupling innovation with marketing excellence to 'achieve the scale and growth that will keep us at the forefront of our industry'. For UK marketers watching a giant retool, the lesson is less about budget size than about structure — building the studios, data and partnerships that make social-first more than a slogan.
Nestlé's move is a masterclass in focus. Most brands spread themselves thin across too many products and too many channels, then wonder why nothing lands. Concentrating money on your strongest brands and building a genuine social-first engine behind them is exactly what smaller UK businesses should copy — at their own scale.
— Oliver Nikolla-Casado, International Markets Reporter at Marketing Minute
Fewer brands, backed harder, beats a long tail of underfunded ones every time.
If you had to put all your marketing budget behind just three of your products, which would they be?
If you would like to know more about this topic, please contact us on danieln@merxmarketing.co.uk
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Written by Oliver Nikolla-Casado, International Markets Reporter at Marketing Minute
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