Strategy
ABOUT STRATEGY | Edition AS-027 | 12 October 2026
Most companies use targeting to focus the budget. The best ones use it to decide what to do first.
We can argue that using targeting to focus the budget (a cost tool) is a fair use. It is also the weakest one.
Most marketers do not reject targeting. Many cannot say what it is. A Better Briefs review found that 62% of British client briefs did not clearly say who the campaign was for. An Ipsos study found a third of British marketers drew a blank on segmentation, targeting and positioning.
So here is the plain version. Targeting means choosing who you sell to, who you do not, and in what order. The order is the part most people skip.
You cannot reach everyone on day one. The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute is right that brands grow by reaching everyone who could buy, including people who are not buying today. But that is where growth ends up, not where it starts.
CIMED is a family-owned Brazilian pharmaceutical group, It makes generics, over-the-counter medicines, vitamins and, more recently, beauty and personal care, under brands such as Cimegripe, Lavitan and Carmed. Its CEO, João Adibe Marques, says it sells about 12% of all medicine boxes in Brazil. Revenue passed R$1 billion in 2017 and reached R$3.6 billion in 2024.
Nubank, a Brazilian digital bank, was founded in São Paulo in 2013 by David Vélez, Cristina Junqueira and Edward Wible. It has no branches and runs through an app. Its first product, in 2014, was a purple Mastercard with no annual fee. By mid-2026 it had almost 139 million customers across Brazil, Mexico and Colombia.
Madrí Excepcional is a European-style beer launched by Molson Coors in British pubs in October 2020. Its branding is Spanish, built around “the soul of Madrid” and developed with La Sagra, a craft brewer from the Madrid area. It is brewed and packed in Burton upon Trent, England, and its labels say so. It entered through one fast-growing slice of the lager market, world lager, which then made up about a quarter of UK lager.
Pick one group of customers, one type of shop or one region where you can win fastest. CIMED’s CEO says Brazil holds ten different Brazils, and that he adjusts portfolio and prices by region. He splits the country at Minas Gerais and sees the most room to grow north of it.
Of about 90,000 pharmacies, he says about 70,000 are independents, and CIMED built for them: a distributor in each state, its own sales force, local pricing. He says this reaches 98% of points of sale.
Nubank’s card launched by invitation only. You needed a friend already inside. It carried no annual fee, in a country where cards carried hefty ones. By June 2015 the waitlist held 100,000 people.
Madrí launched in one slice of the market, world lager, and one channel, pubs. It won more than 6,000 pub accounts, over twice its target. None of them began with everyone.
Once the first group is won, build reach beyond it. Binet and Field studied 996 campaigns and found the strongest results came from putting about 60% of spend into building the brand and 40% into selling now. Treat that as the target once your first group is won, not the starting point.
CIMED spent more than 25 years building its pharmacy network before it bought national fame: the football team sponsorship in 2016, and its own name promoted above its products from 2017. Its first R$1 billion came in 2017. For this year’s World Cup it planned about R$200 million of activations.
Madrí went national in 2022 with a £7.5m campaign across TV, outdoor and social. It reached £1bn in annual sales within five years, and an IPA paper on its growth won bronze at this year’s Effectiveness Awards.
Nubank earned its reach instead of buying it. By December 2017 it had three million customers, almost all through word of mouth, according to its CEO.
Reach takes different forms: CIMED and Madrí paid for it, Nubank earned it. In each case it came after a first group was won. Reach turns a good start into a big brand, and targeting alone caps you.
Your first group shows you the next door. CIMED used its pharmacy network to sell consumer goods, which grew from 31% of revenue in 2021 to about 60%. Its lip balm brand Carmed was relaunched from a community of girls aged 6 to 12 and has made R$2 billion since. It now accounts for about 15% of revenue.
Nubank opened NuConta in 2017: an account with no fees and no credit check, aimed at every Brazilian. About 60 million Brazilians had no account at the time. By 2025 Nubank served over 60% of Brazil’s adults. Madrí moved from pubs to supermarkets, where sales now near £140m a year.
The order has a price. CIMED’s 2025 net profit fell 30% as consumer brands needed more marketing on thinner margins. Targeting does not make growth free. It makes it deliberate.
Targeting decides what you do first. Reach decides how big you get. Each win makes the next one cheaper, which is how value builds over time.
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Stay strategic, my friends
By João Ruas
Senior Marketing Strategist & Founder of About Strategy
Adapted from Better Briefs, Ipsos, Binet and Field (IPA Databank), the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, Nu Holdings filings, and company and press coverage of CIMED, Nubank and Madrí Excepcional.