Prasun Bose – Essity

For Prasun Bose, Global Director of Insights at Essity, brand growth is no longer just a marketing question, but a systemic one. After more than eight years at the company, working on its flagship incontinence brand TENA, his role has evolved from traditional research into building a fully integrated insights ecosystem. The ambition is clear: to connect consumer understanding, market data, and business performance into a single source of truth that drives real growth. In a category shaped by stigma, structural complexity, and increasing competition, Prasun offers a grounded and honest view of what it really takes to grow brands today.

Growth Starts with Penetration and Category Creation

For Prasun, brand growth is fundamentally about expanding the category itself. “I think brand growth is to gain penetration and to grow the category because it’s a severely underpenetrated category,” Prasun explains.

Unlike many FMCG categories, incontinence is still surrounded by stigma. This means growth cannot rely solely on winning share, it requires recruiting entirely new users. “We have realised that the only way to grow the brand sustainably is to get new users into the category who are coming into the category for the first time.”

But this creates a paradox. By investing in reducing stigma and building the category, TENA also lowers barriers for competitors. This makes brand building not just about awareness, but about ensuring the brand captures its fair share of category growth.

“Brand growth is to gain penetration and to grow the category because it’s a severely underpenetrated category.”

A Clear Framework: Mental, Physical and Product Superiority

Essity’s approach to growth is firmly rooted in Ehrenberg-Bass principles, providing a shared internal language around how brands grow. “How brands grow is quite well entrenched in the organisation now, it gives us a common language.”

This has helped shift thinking away from a traditional focus on loyalty and retention, towards recruitment and penetration. Because even if existing buyers contribute a large share of value in any given year, they are not a fixed group. This insight reinforces the importance of continuously recruiting new users and building mental availability over time.

“How brands grow is quite well entrenched in the organisation now; it gives us a common language.”

Even within the business, differences emerge. In B2B environments, where tenders and contracts dominate, loyalty plays a relatively larger role. Yet Prasun remains clear that brand building still matters. “Brand building is equally important in B2B as it is in B2C; you cannot just relax on the fact that you have got big contracts in your pocket.”

“Brand building is equally important in B2B as it is in B2C; you cannot just relax on the fact that you have got big contracts in your pocket.”