When brands label their category as “commoditised,” ambition dies, creativity stalls, and price becomes the only lever left. But commoditisation isn’t real, it’s a failure of imagination, writes former Kimberly-Clark Marketing Director, and consultant, Noam Buchalter.

I can always tell when it's coming. We’re discussing the challenges the brand is facing, when someone clears their throat and the soul-crushing line gets delivered: "Look, let's be honest—this is a commoditised category."

And just like that, ambition dies and the victim narrative takes over. The creative brief gets watered down, the innovation pipeline stalls and price becomes the only lever anyone wants to pull. Value and profit drain from the brand and the category in a self-defeating cycle. I've watched this scene play out across foods and personal care brands large and small.

But here's the thing about "commoditised" categories: they don't exist. I've worked on spreads that became premium functional foods and I've led baby wipes to own skincare and deliver double-digit growth. I’ve seen what insight and smart positioning can do from both ends of the digestive system.

Commoditisation isn't a category condition. It's a failure of imagination.

The Commoditisation Myth

Here's what's really happening when marketers call categories commoditised: they haven't done the hard work to unearth the possibilities. Finding deep consumer insight takes time. Reframing a category requires courage. Building meaningfully different and distinctive brands demands commitment. It's far easier to blame the category, slash prices, and watch margins evaporate than to dig deeper with a growth mindset.

Commoditisation isn't a category condition—it's a strategic cop-out.

I learned this early in my career at Unilever, working in what many would have dismissed as the ultimate commodity: vegetable spreads, or “yellow fats” as the depressing internal jargon went. But the marketers I worked with saw something different. They elevated spreads from bread lubricant to a portfolio of value-adding brands: Flora and Pro-activ for heart health, Bertolli for Mediterranean lifestyle, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter for taste and fun. That insight-driven portfolio strategy made Unilever the UK market leader in spreads throughout the 2000s.

Categories That Weren't Commodities After All

Baby Wipes: I took on Huggies Wipes when it was in double-digit decline, down to No.3 share and incessantly on promotion. Selling at less than £1 a pack, baby wipes were so cheap that they were just as often cleaning bird poo off car windscreens as baby poo off little bottoms. But those little bottoms deserved better. Where others saw wipes, we saw baby skincare. We repositioned Huggies Wipes from "cleaning" to "skin-loving care," improved product performance, and halved portfolio complexity. The result: +28% organic growth across EMEA and #1 UK Market Share within 2 years.

Toilet Tissue: If anything could be commoditised, it's toilet paper. Indeed, when I started working on Andrex it was positioned according to product attributes (soft, strong, long) and segmented by colour. All important and yet all points of parity that Retailer Brands do just as well. But we all use this stuff every day on our most intimate and delicate skin. So, we repositioned Andrex to elevate how we clean and care for ourselves with a new range architecture, brand identity, content and even a Social Mission to bring the dignity of improved sanitation to all. The brand has protected its market-leading share for over a decade and its Toilets Change Lives campaign delivered a winning ROI and went on to improve 5 million lives globally. Even toilet paper can build meaningful differentiation when you look beyond the product.

How to Break the Commoditisation Trap

First, reframe the category. Stop defining your business by the product (wipes, tissue, spreads) and define it by the job consumers are hiring it for (baby skincare, intimate care, health and lifestyle). This opens up differentiation opportunities that product thinking kills.

Second, find the emotional tension. Every "functional" category has emotional drivers if you dig deep enough. And sometimes it’s very obvious when you stop, look and listen. Parents’ desire to prevent nappy rash. People aspiring to improve their health or to feel fresh and confident. The insight is always there—you just have to do the work to find it.

Third, commit to a meaningfully different and distinctive point of view. Half the battle is having the courage to stand for something specific within the category. Doing so with insight-driven relevance is powerful, especially in so-called commoditised categories where distinctiveness shines brightest.

The Real Question

Next time someone tells you your category is commoditised, ask yourself: Have I really exhausted every insight, every creative angle, every repositioning possibility? Or am I hiding behind the excuse?

I've never met a truly commoditised category—only marketers who've given up too soon.