How Countermove works

The market engine

Three fictional brands compete in one category (soft drinks, energy drinks, snacks, beauty and personal care, household care, coffee, or oral care) in one market (a European reference market, the UK, Germany, France, Switzerland, the US or India), across supermarkets, discounters, convenience, drugstores, pharmacies and online. Every quarter the engine takes each company's price, media budget and split, trade terms and investments, and works out sell-in, sell-out, retailer stock, distribution, share of voice, mental availability, profit and loss, cash and share price. The same seed and the same decisions always give the same result, which is what lets the game replay your year with every alternative.

Key relationships and their sources

Relationship	Value in Countermove	Source
Price elasticity of volume	For one brand holding a new shelf price: about −1.5 in the first quarter and about −1.8 once habits adjust and rivals answer, on average across categories (each category is in the table below), and higher on deal. So a 1% rise costs about 1.5% of volume at first and about 1.8% later: margin per unit rises, but sales value falls about 0.5% at first and about 0.8% later. Loyal buyers react far less than switchers, which is why the response builds over a few quarters. Validation shows the measured figures	Bijmolt, van Heerde & Pieters (2005), meta-analysis of 1,851 elasticities, mean −2.62, with promotional elasticities above regular-price ones; Jedidi, Mela & Gupta (1999), Marketing Science
Advertising elasticity	About 0.10 in the first quarter and about 0.30 a year on. The published averages are 0.12 and 0.24: Countermove is lower in the quarter (as Shapiro, Hitsch & Tuchman (2021) find for most packaged-goods brands) and a little higher over time, because habit and brand memory carry the effect forward	Sethuraman, Tellis & Briesch (2011), Journal of Marketing Research
Advertising carry-over	Research: about 0.47 of one quarter's effect carries into the next. In Countermove it measures about 0.88, because buying habit and brand memory carry any extra sales forward too (see Validation)	Assmus, Farley & Lehmann (1984), Journal of Marketing Research
Brand vs activation split	Brand media builds mental availability slowly and lasts, and also reminds people who know the brand in the weeks it runs; activation and deals lift this quarter and fade. Binet & Field's average across IPA cases is 60:40: a benchmark, not a recommendation. Their later work finds the best split ranges up to about 80% brand and moves with the category, the brand's situation and the time horizon. Countermove works out your brand's own split from its mental availability, margin, deal dependence, price position and horizon (the Advisor's optimiser); averaged over Countermove's reference markets on a standard plan, two-year profit peaks near 60:40	Binet & Field (2013), The Long and the Short of It, IPA
How much to spend on media	Theory puts the most profitable advertising budget where its share of sales equals the gross margin times the advertising elasticity, which for these categories is roughly 10-15% of sales. Judged on two years of profit, Countermove's best budget is often leaner than that, and the Advisor's optimiser, judged on two years by default (three is an option), often recommends a lean budget. That is mostly the horizon: brand memory keeps paying after two years, and over three years Countermove's best budget sits at or above the norm. Going dark costs about what the research finds, so the lean answer is not a shortcut; it often comes with a price rise, which makes each euro of media win less. So treat a lean recommendation as a two-year answer, not a rule. Validation shows the measured figures	Dorfman & Steiner (1954), American Economic Review; Sethuraman, Tellis & Briesch (2011); Ehrenberg-Bass and Kantar on going dark
Creative quality	Media money is not all equal. Each campaign gets hidden scores for attention, branding, emotion and persuasion, drawn with luck when it is made; a bigger creative budget (5%, 10% or 16% of the media), pre-testing (1.5% of a quarter's media and a quarter's delay) and consistent brand codes improve the odds, never guarantee them. Attention sets how much memory each euro buys; about 50% of people link an average ad to the right brand, and below that 60% of the shortfall builds the most mentally available rival, usually the leader. Emotional ads build longer-lasting memory and lower price sensitivity; rational, offer-led ads sell more in the quarter and wear out faster (about 11% a quarter against 4%). Rivals run their own campaigns. A player who leaves creative alone runs an average ad. Validation shows the measured figures	Nielsen (2017): 47% of the sales lift from advertising comes from the creative; Ipsos (Brand Link): about half link an ad to the right brand; Binet & Field (2013); Romaniuk (2018), Building Distinctive Brand Assets; Kantar and Ipsos on wear-out
Mental and physical availability	Share follows how often buyers think of the brand and how easily they find it	Sharp (2010), How Brands Grow
Loyal buyers and habit	About seven in ten purchase occasions come from habitual buyers who stick with the brand they know and can find. They ignore ads, stock up when their brand is on deal (and buy less the quarter after), and react far less than switchers to shelf price until it climbs well above what they are used to. The rest are switchers, who react to all of it. A fifth of each quarter's buying also carries into the next out of habit, so a change keeps building for a few quarters, and a big move runs out of switchers instead of growing without limit	Kamakura & Russell (1989), Journal of Marketing Research (loyal and switching segments); Guadagni & Little (1983), Marketing Science, and Seetharaman (2004), Marketing Science (purchase habit); Dickson & Sawyer (1990), Journal of Marketing (few shoppers check prices)
Competitor reactions	Most of the time rivals don't react; when they do, they mostly retaliate in kind. Against a price-promotion attack the published odds of no reaction, retaliation in kind and easing off are 53.7%, 30.4% and 15.9%; against an advertising attack most rivals don't answer with advertising (82.5%), though regular advertisers hit back more often (37.0%). Those odds decide whether a rival responds. What it does is a bounded best response: each rival reads what kind of player you are from the retail data (deal-led, brand-led, price cutter or premium), tries its options two quarters ahead on a simple model of the market, and picks with some noise; leaders weigh a lost share point more than a won one.	Steenkamp, Nijs, Hanssens & Dekimpe (2005), Marketing Science 24(1): short-run reactions to price-promotion and advertising attacks (tables 3A and 4A)
Trade spend	About 14 to 17% of gross sales on a normal plan, more when deals deepen	Strategy& consumer-goods trade-spend benchmarks
Sell-in vs sell-out	Pushing stock into retailers books sales now and costs them later; the game tracks retailer stock weeks	Modelled on the SEC's 2005 Coca-Cola channel-stuffing case
Share price	Fair value is run-rate earnings times a P/E that rises with growth and falls with interest rates. The price closes a fifth of the gap each quarter, reacts up to 6% to an earnings surprise against a seasonal consensus, and moves at most 15% in a quarter: typical moves are about 5%	Standard earnings-multiple valuation; volatility set to a large consumer-goods stock
Sugar levy	Brands can reformulate or pass the cost on; pass-through around a third	Evidence on the UK Soft Drinks Industry Levy (BMJ Open and related studies)

Values are simplified for play. Ranges in the research are wide; Countermove uses central estimates and keeps them fixed so results are comparable between players.

How closely does the engine match these sources? The validation page runs the engine against each published benchmark and shows where it matches and where it departs.

To try these relationships by hand, Countermove Academy has thirteen short lessons, each with a lab that runs this engine.

To race whole plans against each other, the war room runs two or three plans on the same ten worlds, so any gap between them is the plan and not the luck of the draw. In a game it sits on the desk, beside your call.

Categories and markets

Soft drinks in the European reference market was calibrated first. Every other market is built from it by changing only what research says differs, so the mechanics, and the tests that check them, are the same everywhere. The engine runs in euros in every market, so business cases, fees and scores stay comparable; play shows money in the market's own currency at the fixed rates below.

Category	Brand shelf-price elasticity: first quarter / once habits adjust	Media and deals vs soft drinks	Demand by quarter	Cost drivers
Soft drinks	−1.7 / −1.8	Media ×1.0, deals ×1.00	0.92 / 1.08 / 1.10 / 0.90	Sugar, Aluminium
Energy drinks	−1.3 / −1.5	Media ×1.6, deals ×0.90	0.94 / 1.04 / 1.05 / 0.97	Aluminium cans, Sugar, Caffeine & taurine
Snacks	−1.9 / −2.3	Media ×0.8, deals ×1.30	0.93 / 0.99 / 1.03 / 1.05	Vegetable oil, Potatoes
Beauty & personal care	−1.4 / −1.9	Media ×2.0, deals ×1.00	0.97 / 1.02 / 1.03 / 0.98	Petrochemicals, Palm oil
Household care	−1.4 / −1.9	Media ×1.0, deals ×1.30	1.00 / 1.05 / 0.98 / 0.97	Petrochemicals (surfactants), Palm kernel oil, Plastic packaging (HDPE)
Coffee	−1.9 / −2.3	Media ×0.8, deals ×1.40	1.05 / 0.95 / 0.92 / 1.08	Arabica coffee, Robusta coffee, Packaging (aluminium/film)
Oral care	−1.1 / −1.2	Media ×1.3, deals ×1.10	0.99 / 0.99 / 1.02 / 1.00	Petrochemicals & resins, Sorbitol (corn), Laminate tubes & cartons

Countries

Market	Soft drinks	Energy drinks	Snacks	Beauty & personal care	Household care	Coffee	Oral care	Rate / inflation / confidence	Currency
Europe (reference)	€0.91bn	€0.90bn	€0.90bn	€0.90bn	€0.90bn	€0.90bn	€0.90bn	2.50% / 2.2% / 98	EUR
United Kingdom	€11.9bn	€2.6bn	€6.2bn	€7.9bn	€3.2bn	€2.0bn	€1.4bn	3.75% / 3.1% / 95	1 GBP = €1.185
Germany	€9.0bn	€2.8bn	€5.0bn	€11.0bn	€4.0bn	€6.3bn	€2.0bn	2.50% / 3.3% / 88	EUR
France	€6.5bn	€1.3bn	€2.3bn	€6.5bn	€3.2bn	€3.8bn	€1.4bn	2.50% / 3.1% / 94	EUR
Switzerland	€2.2bn	€0.60bn	€0.54bn	€1.8bn	€0.60bn	€1.0bn	€0.30bn	0.00% / 1.0% / 90	1 CHF = €1.079
United States	€98.0bn	€22.2bn	€28.7bn	€64.0bn	€17.8bn	€15.1bn	€7.6bn	3.90% / 3.4% / 82	1 USD = €0.889
India	€6.5bn	€0.47bn	€5.1bn	€17.5bn	€6.1bn	€0.56bn	€1.6bn	5.50% / 4.8% / 95	1 INR = €0.0094

Market sizes above are in euros, the engine's currency. In play, money shows in the market's own currency: in the UK, Switzerland, the US and India, figures in pounds, Swiss francs, US dollars or rupees, converted from euros at a fixed rate (the last column). Rupee amounts use lakh and crore. The conversion is for display only, so scores are the same in every currency.

Europe (reference): what shapes it, and sources

A composite euro-area market used to calibrate the engine
Energy drinks: Drinks over 150 mg/l caffeine must say 'High caffeine content (x mg/100 ml)' and 'Not recommended for children or pregnant or breast-feeding women' next to the name (Regulation 1169/2011, Annex III)
Energy drinks: Sales to under-18s are banned in Lithuania (since Nov 2014), Latvia, Poland (Jan 2024), Romania (Mar 2024), Hungary and Bulgaria (2025) and Croatia (Jun 2026); Norway bans under-16s from 2026
Energy drinks: Poland's ban covers drinks over 150 mg/l caffeine or taurine, bans vending-machine sales, and fines sellers up to PLN 2,000
Household care: EU Detergents Regulation (648/2004, being recast) and phosphate caps (259/2012: laundry 2013, dishwasher 0.3g P per dose from 2017)
Household care: EU microplastics restriction (2023/2055) phases out encapsulated fragrance in detergents over the late 2020s
Household care: Disinfectant cleaners need Biocidal Products Regulation approval
Coffee: EU Deforestation Regulation applies from 30 Dec 2026 (large/medium operators) and 30 Jun 2027 (small): every bag needs geolocated proof of deforestation-free origin
Coffee: EU Packaging Regulation (2025/40): soft coffee pads and filters must be industrially compostable from Feb 2028; hard capsules must be recyclable from 2030
Oral care: Toothpaste is a cosmetic in the EU: fluoride capped at 1,500ppm (0.15%)
Oral care: Hydrogen peroxide over 0.1% (whitening) only via dentists, max 6%
Oral care: Microplastics restriction covers rinse-off products incl. toothpaste

Sources: Energy drinks: Convention: EUR 900m reference market, like the other categories. For context, Germany's tracked market (Circana, EUR 2.2bn for 83m people) implies about EUR 1.6bn for a 60m-adult euro-area market of the same habits.; Energy drinks: Finnish Food Authority (Ruokavirasto), caffeine labelling guidance on Regulation 1169/2011 Annex III point 4; Energy drinks: Wikipedia, Age restrictions on energy drinks by country (accessed Oct 2026); Energy drinks: Notes from Poland, 24 Aug 2023

United Kingdom: what shapes it, and sources

Soft Drinks Industry Levy on sugary drinks (threshold falls to 4.5g/100ml in 2028)
Rules on foods high in fat, sugar or salt: no prime placement, no multi-buys, no TV ads before 9pm or paid online ads
Energy drinks: Sales of drinks over 150 mg/l caffeine to under-16s banned in England from April 2027 (subject to Parliament): in store, online and in hospitality; vending-machine sales banned outright; fines up to GBP 2,500. Many large retailers already refuse under-16s
Energy drinks: Soft Drinks Industry Levy: full-sugar energy drinks (about 11 g/100 ml) sit in the top band; the lower threshold falls from 5 g to 4.5 g/100 ml on 1 Jan 2028
Energy drinks: Convenience is the core channel: nearly GBP 1.1bn of about GBP 1.9bn (2024)
Household care: UK REACH and retained EU detergent/phosphate rules; packaging EPR fees from 2025 raise plastic-bottle costs
Household care: Heavy promotion culture; own label strong in discounters (Aldi, Lidl)
Coffee: No coffee tax; HFSS rules do not apply to plain coffee (they do to sweetened coffee mixes)
Coffee: UK has its own forest-risk commodities law (Environment Act 2021) but secondary legislation not yet in force; EUDR does not apply
Oral care: Toothpaste is a cosmetic; above 1,500ppm fluoride is prescription-only
Oral care: Microbead ban in rinse-off products since 2018
Oral care: Water fluoridation being expanded in north-east England

Sources: Worldpanel grocery market share, Nov 2025; Bank of England, Sep 2026; ONS CPI, Aug 2026; GfK consumer confidence, Sep 2026; GOV.UK SDIL policy paper; BSDA/Britvic Soft Drinks Review: take-home about £12.6bn incl. water, 19% water (Circana); NIQ/Circana: crisps, snacks and nuts £5.3bn; Kantar: 28.2% of grocery spend on promotion (Mar 2025), 12% online (Apr 2024); Mass beauty split of Cosmetics Europe's €12.2bn total (estimate); Energy drinks: GBP 2.2bn (2025, estimate). NIQ: 'over GBP 2.1bn for GB retailers' (Wholesale Manager, 2025); CCEP/Monster: 'over GBP 1.9bn', of which nearly GBP 1.1bn in convenience (KamCity, May 2024). Monster's GB value grew 24% (NIQ, 2025). Includes some shots; shots are a small share in GB.; Energy drinks: Lewis Silkin, 17 Jul 2026: government confirms under-16 ban in England; Energy drinks: GOV.UK, Changes to the Soft Drinks Industry Levy policy paper (Nov 2025); Energy drinks: Wholesale Manager (2025) citing NIQ; Energy drinks: KamCity, 2 May 2024 citing CCEP; Household care: Nielsen MAT Sep 2021 laundry GBP 1.7bn (detergents ~1.2bn) via DCS Group; uplifted for 2022-25 inflation to ~1.4bn detergent, plus dishwash ~0.65bn and cleaners ~0.65bn (estimate); Coffee: GBP 1.7bn retail coffee (Lavazza, Jul 2025); Oral care: almost GBP 1bn (DCS Group, 2022) uplifted to 2025 (estimate)

Germany: what shapes it, and sources

Discounter-led, and promotion share has climbed to over a quarter of food sales
No sugar tax
Energy drinks: Caffeine capped at 320 mg/l, taurine 4,000 mg/l, inositol 200 mg/l and glucuronolactone 2,400 mg/l (Fruchtsaft- und Erfrischungsgetraenkeverordnung)
Energy drinks: No legal age limit; some retailers (e.g. Rossmann, Lidl) refuse sales to under-16s voluntarily
Energy drinks: Flavour editions are now 46% of value and grew 22% in 2024; the classic taste is flat
Household care: Drugstores (dm, Rossmann) sell 35% of household care, discounters 27% (IKW 2024)
Household care: Waschmittelgesetz (WRMG) sets dosing labels and phosphate limits
Coffee: Kaffeesteuer: EUR 2.19/kg roast and EUR 4.78/kg soluble coffee, on top of 7% VAT
Coffee: EUDR applies from 30 Dec 2026
Coffee: Coffee is a classic discounter and Aktion (deal) category; one in three homes has a bean-to-cup machine
Oral care: Drugstores dominate; strong own labels (dm Dontodent, Rossmann Perlodent)
Oral care: Cosmetic fluoride limit 1,500ppm

Sources: Destatis CPI, Sep 2026; ECB deposit rate, Sep 2026; GfK/NIM Konsumklima, Oct 2026; NIQ: salty snacks about €5bn; IKW 2024: beauty €16.9bn total, drugstores 52% (mass split is an estimate); NIQ: 27.7% of food sold on promotion (Q1 2026); HDE: 2.9% of food bought online (2023); Soft drinks excluding water (estimate); Energy drinks: EUR 2.8bn (2025, estimate). Circana EUR 2.217bn in 2024 covers supermarkets >=200m2 incl. discounters, dm, cash & carry and drinks stores but not petrol stations or kiosks. Grown ~9% to 2025 (EUR 2.42bn) and uplifted ~15% for untracked petrol/kiosk/convenience.; Energy drinks: Meininger / Circana (2025): German energy drinks 2024; Energy drinks: wafg (German soft drinks association) energy drinks flyer; Energy drinks: Wikipedia, Age restrictions on energy drinks by country; Household care: IKW 2024e: laundry 1,487 + fine/special 244 + dishwash 975 + cleaners 1,294 = 4,000m (excl. softener and air care); Coffee: DKV 2025 EUR 8.98bn total roast coffee incl. out-of-home (27.5% of tonnes); at-home retail estimated at ~70% of value = EUR 6.3bn (estimate); Oral care: IKW 2024e EUR 1,984m

France: what shapes it, and sources

Tiered tax on sugary drinks, raised in March 2025
EGalim caps food and drink promotions at 34% off and 25% of volume
Energy drinks: Extra contribution on drinks with at least 220 mg/l caffeine: about EUR 1 per litre (base EUR 100/hl, indexed yearly; CGI art. 1613 bis A), on top of the sugar tax
Energy drinks: No national age limit
Beauty & personal care: Promotions on hygiene and beauty products capped at 40% off (34% from Mar 2024, raised Apr 2025) until Apr 2028
Household care: Promotions on household and hygiene products capped at 40% off (34% from Mar 2024, raised Apr 2025) until Apr 2028
Household care: Triman/Info-tri recycling labels required
Coffee: No coffee excise; EUDR applies from 30 Dec 2026
Coffee: Capsules are 35% of value; Nespresso-compatible capsules alone ~EUR 770m
Oral care: Same promotion cap (DPH) applies to toothpaste
Oral care: PFAS ban in cosmetics from 1 Jan 2026 (Feb 2025 law)
Oral care: Pharmacies sell a meaningful share of sensitivity and gum-care toothpaste

Sources: Insee CPI and household confidence, Sep 2026; ECB, Sep 2026; Circana: beauty about €9bn, of which pharmacy €2.52bn (2024); NIQ: 21.9% of FMCG sold on promotion and 13.3% online (2025); Soft drinks and snacks (estimates); Energy drinks: EUR 1.3bn (2025, estimate). No public French total found (LSA/Circana paywalled). German per-capita spend (~EUR 34) cut to ~EUR 19 for France's lower consumption, times 68m people. France is the fastest-growing big market: Monster company value +35.5% (NIQ, 2025).; Energy drinks: CGI article 1613 bis A (text via TheTradeHub; check Légifrance for the current rate); Energy drinks: Eurojuris (Oct 2014): Conseil constitutionnel QPC 2014-417 on the energy drink contribution; Energy drinks: Monster investor presentation (Nov 2025, NIQ); Household care: estimate: German per-capita spend (EUR ~48) applied to 68m people; Coffee: IntoTheMinds 2025, EUR 3.80bn (secondary source; underlying panel not named); Oral care: estimate: German per-capita spend scaled down for lower drugstore density, plus pharmacy channel

Switzerland: what shapes it, and sources

Migros and Coop hold about two thirds of grocery
No sugar tax; voluntary sugar reduction (Milan Declaration)
Energy drinks: Caffeine capped at 160 mg per half litre (320 mg/l); cantonal labs found 10 of 27 drinks over the limit and ordered recalls (Dec 2025)
Energy drinks: No age limit; a National Council motion (Roduit) would ban sales of drinks over 150 mg/l to under-16s, but the Federal Council has so far rejected a sales ban
Energy drinks: Red Bull about 25% share, Monster about 15%; strong Migros and Coop own labels (M-Budget, Prix Garantie)
Household care: Phosphates banned in laundry detergent since 1986 (ChemRRV)
Household care: Migros and Coop own brands are strong
Coffee: Coffee stays in the compulsory emergency stocks (a 2019 plan to drop it was abandoned); importers pay about CHF 3 per 100 kg into the reserve fund, passed into prices
Coffee: Home of Nespresso and Delica (Migros); capsule share very high
Coffee: EUDR does not apply directly, but Swiss traders supplying the EU must comply
Oral care: Migros own brand Candida is a top brand; cosmetic fluoride limit 1,500ppm as in the EU

Sources: SNB, Sep 2026; FSO CPI, Sep 2026; SECO consumer sentiment, Sep 2026; Handelsverband.swiss: 3.0% of food bought online (2025); Zweifel revenue CHF 304m with over half the crisps market (2024); Other market sizes (estimates; no public Swiss category data); Energy drinks: CHF 560m (2025, estimate): Statista via Blick, about CHF 500m in 2023 (CHF 300m in 2018), grown ~6% a year. Statista outlook figures may include some out-of-home sales.; Energy drinks: Blick (2024) citing Statista; Energy drinks: blue News (Dec 2025): every third energy drink tested breaks the rules; Energy drinks: blue News (Dec 2025): should energy drinks be banned for under-16s?; Household care: estimate: German per-capita spend x 9m people x 1.4 price level; Coffee: estimate: German at-home per-capita x 1.4 price level, high capsule share; Oral care: estimate: German per-capita x 1.3 price level

United States: what shapes it, and sources

Soda taxes in a few cities; SNAP soda restrictions in about 18 states
Synthetic food dyes being phased out
Energy drinks: No federal age limit and no FDA rule specific to energy drinks; FDA says 400 mg caffeine a day is not generally linked to harm in healthy adults and advises against energy drinks for children and teens
Energy drinks: State bills: Massachusetts H.1908 (2025) would ban sales to under-18s; Connecticut HB 6395 (2025) would ban promotion to under-16s and require ID
Energy drinks: 50% tariffs on aluminium imports pushed the Midwest premium to a record 90 c/lb (Dec 2025), raising can costs
Energy drinks: Celsius, Alani Nu and other zero-sugar brands took about a fifth of the category by late 2025
Household care: Phosphates in dishwasher detergent banned in 17 states since 2010
Household care: New York caps 1,4-dioxane in cleaning products at 1ppm (from end-2023); California Cleaning Product Right to Know Act requires ingredient disclosure
Household care: Minnesota bans intentionally added PFAS in cleaning products from 2025
Coffee: Tariffs on Brazil and Vietnam drove record shelf prices in 2025; coffee was exempted in Nov 2025, giving partial relief
Coffee: California Prop 65 acrylamide warning not required for coffee (2019 OEHHA rule)
Oral care: Fluoride toothpaste is an OTC drug (FDA anticaries monograph), not a cosmetic
Oral care: Utah and Florida ended community water fluoridation in 2025; FDA moved against ingestible fluoride for children
Oral care: Microbead-Free Waters Act (2015); Minnesota bans PFAS in dental floss from 2025

Sources: Federal Reserve, Sep 2026; BLS CPI, Aug 2026; University of Michigan sentiment, Oct 2026; Circana for SNAC International: salty snacks $31.1bn; Circana: mass beauty $72.7bn (2025); CHPA/NIQ: OTC $58.2bn incl. antiperspirant and toothpaste, about $46bn without (2025); NIQ: 28.4% of grocery dollars bought on deal (H1 2024); Brick Meets Click: 20.9% of grocery online (Q3 2026); Soft drinks excluding water (estimate from BMC $255bn incl. water); Energy drinks: USD 25bn (2025, estimate). NIQ: USD 23.6bn in the 52 weeks to mid-2025 and ~USD 24.8bn to Mar 2026; calendar 2025 about USD 24.5bn tracked; plus ~6% untracked (club, Amazon), less ~USD 1bn energy shots.; Energy drinks: FDA Consumer Update, Spilling the Beans (Aug 2024); Energy drinks: malegislature.gov H.1908 (filed 15 Jan 2025); Energy drinks: Connecticut General Assembly HB 6395 (2025); Energy drinks: S&P Global (15 Dec 2025); Energy drinks: NIQ Perspectives Energy Drinks (Aug 2025); Energy drinks: Food Dive / Goldman Sachs on NIQ (2026); Energy drinks: Celsius FY2025 results; Household care: estimate: Circana laundry detergent USD 9.1bn (2023, Happi) + dishwash ~4.5bn + cleaners ~4bn, uplifted to 2025 and for untracked club/Amazon; Coffee: estimate: Smucker ~USD 3.3bn coffee net sales at 26% Circana share, retail mark-up ~1.3, plus 2025-26 price rises and untracked D2C; Oral care: estimate: toothpaste USD 3.9bn (2023) + mouthwash ~2.2bn + manual brushes ~2bn, uplifted to 2025

India: what shapes it, and sources

Most sales go through small kirana stores via distributors
GST of 40% on aerated drinks; 5% on everyday personal care
Energy drinks: Caffeinated beverages must hold 145-300 mg/l caffeine and say 'not recommended for children, pregnant or lactating women, persons sensitive to caffeine' and 'consume not more than 500 ml per day' (FSSAI)
Energy drinks: GST of 40% on caffeinated beverages (raised from 28% plus cess in Sep 2025)
Energy drinks: FSSAI ordered brands to stop using the words 'energy drink' (30 Jun 2026); the Delhi High Court set the order aside for Red Bull (29 Sep 2026) and let Reliance's Campa keep the label (6 Oct 2026); further hearings pending
Energy drinks: Price war at the bottom: INR 10 cups and INR 20 PET bottles against INR 125 for an imported 250ml can
Household care: GST on detergents cut from 18% to 5% from 22 Sep 2025 (Grant Thornton in Business Standard; check CBIC for liquids and cleaners)
Household care: Bars and powders still lead; liquids growing fast (HUL liquids > INR 4,000 crore)
Coffee: Packaged coffee at 5% GST; instant moved from 18% to 5% in Sep 2025
Coffee: FSSAI allows coffee-chicory blends if labelled; South India dominates consumption
Coffee: India is an exporter: EUDR affects growers selling to Europe
Oral care: GST on toothpaste and toothbrushes cut from 18% to 5% (22 Sep 2025)
Oral care: Toothpaste is a cosmetic under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act; BIS caps fluoride at 1,000ppm
Oral care: The consumer regulator (CCPA) ordered 'dentist-recommended' ads featuring foreign dentists withdrawn in 2022

Sources: RBI policy and consumer confidence survey, Oct 2026; GST rates from Sep 2025; Bikaji prospectus: organised savoury snacks ₹42,300cr (FY22); Redseer: beauty and personal care about $21bn; mass share estimated; Deloitte-FICCI: 17% of FMCG bought online; Soft drinks (estimate); Energy drinks: INR 5,000 crore (2025, estimate). Third Eyesight: INR 3,500 crore in 2022 (Red Bull 61%, Sting 7%); grown ~12.6% a year (Euromonitor growth via Khaleej Times). Euromonitor's own 2022 figure was lower (INR 1,649 crore, 33.5m litres), so the range is wide; INR 10-20 packs (Sting, Campa) have since driven volume.; Energy drinks: Food Safety Helpline: FSSAI caffeinated beverage standards; Energy drinks: Deccan Herald (3 Sep 2025): GST on caffeinated beverages to 40%; Energy drinks: The Munim (May 2026): 40% slab, Notification 01/2026; Energy drinks: Free Press Journal (Sep 2026); Khaleej Times (Oct 2026); Energy drinks: Third Eyesight; Storyboard18 citing Euromonitor; Energy drinks: Euromonitor: Democratisation of energy drinks in India; Household care: estimate: HUL Home Care INR 23,672 crore (FY26) at ~40% share, plus retail margin; Coffee: estimate: no primary source; instant ~INR 4,500cr plus filter/ground ~INR 1,500cr; Oral care: estimate: Colgate India INR 5,999cr (FY25) at ~42% toothpaste share, plus brushes and mouthwash, plus retail margin

Market sizes, promotion shares and online shares come from the published figures listed for each market (Circana, NIQ, Kantar, industry bodies); where nothing is published, mostly Swiss categories, mass-beauty splits and soft drinks excluding water, the figure is an estimate and says so; policy rates, inflation and exchange rates are as published in September and October 2026. Confidence is rescaled so 100 is neutral. Mission targets are set per category so each mission is about as hard everywhere: share moves fast in beauty, and in Switzerland, where two retailers hold two thirds of grocery, the challenger is asked to hold share.

Margins

Net sales are shelf price times volume, less retailer margin and trade spend. Gross profit subtracts unit cost (ingredients, packaging, freight); a new production line or commodity shock changes unit cost for the brands it touches. Media, overheads, depreciation, interest and tax come off below. A price rise therefore lifts value per unit, cuts volume by more in percentage terms, and raises gross margin percentage. At Countermove's margins total profit stays roughly flat while share falls; a price cut does the reverse, buying share at a real cost in profit. Competitors may match a cut, which takes the share gain back.

The agents

Your colleagues

You take one seat; the other three are played by agents. The CEO sets the strategy (grow share, balanced or protect profit) and makes the final call; the CMO owns the media mix, the CFO the spending envelope, and the Chief Customer Officer price and the trade. Each agent scores every option with the engine, then picks by its own utility: what it is paid to care about, weighted by the CEO's strategy.

Tom Hale, Chief Executive. Set the strategy, hit the board's mission and keep the share price rising.
Maya Lindqvist, Chief Marketing Officer. Grow the brand for the long term: share next year as well as this quarter.
Daniel Okoro, Chief Financial Officer. Protect profit and cash; every unit of spend has to earn its keep.
Priya Raman, Chief Customer Officer. Win the market: price, promotions and shelf space with the retailers.

Before you lock a quarter, each colleague compares your plan with their preferred one. If the gap in their own utility passes a threshold, they push back, with the numbers. You can overrule any of them; the year-end report shows whether you were right.

Competitors

The incumbent and the premium player (Halvard Cola and Brisa in soft drinks, Crunchmore and Oakfield Kitchen in snacks and Velina and Maison Ardelle in beauty) read the same retail data you do and mostly answer one quarter late. They act when a trigger is crossed, or now and then on their own plans, such as losing more than a point of share or seeing a price gap widen, and their response odds follow the Steenkamp study above. Every move shows its trigger.

The board

Elena Varga (Chair), Marcus Boyd (Investor director), Aiko Tan (Independent director). The board meets before Q3. Each director votes on business cases by their own test: cash NPV over five years at 8%, payback, leverage and fit with the mission. Two votes out of three carry.

Analysts

Lena Brandt, Brand director: How healthy is the brand?
Sam Okafor, Insights manager: What does the marketing-mix model say?
Jonas Weber, Category manager: Where are we winning and losing shelf?
Mia Laurent, FP&A lead: Why did profit move against last year?

The marketing-mix model is a real regression. It runs ordinary least squares on log sell-out across 96 quarterly observations from 24 alternative worlds with media and deal levels varied by up to 60%, with a carry-over term, and reports coefficients, t-statistics, R² and return on each channel. The brand-equity index is the geometric mean of mental availability, physical availability, perceived quality and inverse price sensitivity, each against the category. The profit bridge splits the change in net income exactly into volume, price and mix, unit cost, media, overheads and below-the-line items.

A second model, the econometrician's, is fitted at full time on your own weekly sales: a Bayesian regression with priors from the published literature, a Hill saturation curve and carry-over for each channel. It reports 80% ranges, and Countermove marks it against the true return of each channel, which only the game knows.

The Advisor

The Advisor is a language model with a tool: it can ask the engine “what if” for any option and quote the answer. It only sees your own game. When live AI is off, a rule-based Advisor answers from the same engine.

How the agents use AI

Decisions are made by the engine and the utility functions, not by a language model, so they are consistent and explainable. When live AI is on (through Groq, the default provider, or through Vercel AI Gateway or OpenRouter, including its free models), a model rewrites colleagues' lines so they sound like people; any rewrite that changes a number is thrown away.

The news desk

At the start of a game Countermove reads the past two weeks of headlines for your category from the GDELT Project, a free, open index of world news. Each headline goes through four steps:

Classify. Match it to one of the kinds below, and find a clear direction (up or down). Headlines with no clean signal are dropped.
Size. Use the figure in the headline if there is one, otherwise the typical size, and never more than the cap.
Schedule. At most two news shocks a quarter, of different kinds.
Rewrite. Turn it into an in-game headline about the fictional market, with a link to the original source.

Soft drinks
Kind	What it changes	Typical	Cap
Interest rates	Borrowing costs and valuation multiples for every company.	25 bps	100 bps
Consumer confidence	Shoppers trade down or up; deal buying shifts.	4 pts	15 pts
Commodity price (Sugar)	Sugar is about 15% of a can's cost: unit costs move for every brand.	15%	40%
Commodity price (Aluminium)	Cans are about 20% of unit cost.	12%	40%
Regulation	A levy raises unit costs for sugary products; brands can pass on part or reformulate.	8%	15%
Demand (weather, flu season)	Cold-drink demand rises for one quarter.	8%	15%
Demand (weather, flu season)	Cold-drink demand falls for one quarter.	6%	15%

Snacks
Kind	What it changes	Typical	Cap
Interest rates	Borrowing costs and valuation multiples for every company.	25 bps	100 bps
Consumer confidence	Shoppers trade down or up; deal buying shifts.	4 pts	15 pts
Commodity price (Potatoes)	Potatoes are about 12% of a pack's cost.	15%	40%
Commodity price (Vegetable oil)	Frying oil is about 12% of a pack's cost.	12%	40%
Commodity price (wheat)	Wheat is about 6% of cost (crackers and baked lines).	10%	35%
Regulation	Rules on less healthy food limit promotions and prime shelf space; reformulating costs money.	6%	12%

Beauty & personal care
Kind	What it changes	Typical	Cap
Interest rates	Borrowing costs and valuation multiples for every company.	25 bps	100 bps
Consumer confidence	Shoppers trade down or up; deal buying shifts.	4 pts	15 pts
Commodity price (Palm oil)	Palm-based surfactants are about 8% of cost.	12%	40%
Commodity price (Petrochemicals)	Petrochemical ingredients and plastic packaging move with oil.	10%	35%
Regulation	New EU ingredient rules force reformulation: unit costs rise for affected products.	5%	10%
Demand (weather, flu season)	Sun care and deodorant sell more for one quarter.	5%	10%

Household care
Kind	What it changes	Typical	Cap
Interest rates	Borrowing costs and valuation multiples for every company.	25 bps	100 bps
Consumer confidence	Shoppers trade down or up; deal buying shifts.	4 pts	15 pts
Commodity price (Palm kernel oil)	Palm-kernel and coconut-based surfactants are about 8% of a bottle's cost: unit costs move for every brand.	15%	50%
Commodity price (Petrochemicals (surfactants))	Petrochemical surfactants and plastic bottles move with oil.	10%	35%
Regulation	New ingredient rules force reformulation: unit costs rise for affected products.	3%	8%
Demand (weather, flu season)	Wet weather or an outbreak lifts cleaner and disinfectant demand for one quarter.	4%	10%

Coffee
Kind	What it changes	Typical	Cap
Interest rates	Borrowing costs and valuation multiples for every company.	25 bps	100 bps
Consumer confidence	Shoppers trade down or up; deal buying shifts.	4 pts	15 pts
Commodity price (Arabica coffee)	Arabica is about a third of a pack's cost: every roaster's unit cost moves, and shelf prices follow.	20%	60%
Commodity price (Robusta coffee)	Robusta (instant and value blends) is about 14% of cost.	20%	60%
Regulation	Traceability rules or tariffs add cost per kilo; smaller roasters are hit harder.	3%	10%
Demand (weather, flu season)	A cold spell keeps people home and brewing for one quarter.	3%	8%

Oral care
Kind	What it changes	Typical	Cap
Interest rates	Borrowing costs and valuation multiples for every company.	25 bps	100 bps
Consumer confidence	Shoppers trade down or up; deal buying shifts.	4 pts	15 pts
Demand (weather, flu season)	Where water fluoridation ends, dentists push fluoride toothpaste harder: enamel and kids lines gain.	3%	6%
Regulation	Tighter ingredient or claims rules force reformulation of whitening lines.	3%	8%
Demand (weather, flu season)	A tax cut lowers shelf prices and lifts volume, mostly in value tiers.	8%	12%
Commodity price (Petrochemicals & resins)	Tubes and some ingredients move with oil: about 10% of cost.	8%	25%

Energy drinks
Kind	What it changes	Typical	Cap
Interest rates	Borrowing costs and valuation multiples for every company.	25 bps	100 bps
Consumer confidence	Shoppers trade down or up; deal buying shifts.	4 pts	15 pts
Commodity price (Aluminium cans)	The can is about a quarter of an energy drink's unit cost; every brand's cost moves together, small brands without hedges first.	12%	35%
Commodity price (Sugar)	Sugar matters only for the full-sugar half of the range: about 5% of unit cost.	15%	40%
Commodity price (Caffeine & taurine)	Taurine and synthetic caffeine come mostly from Chinese plants; a supply shock moves a small slice of cost.	10%	30%
Regulation	Age limits cut teen volume and add ID checks; levies and caffeine taxes raise unit cost.	3%	8%
Demand (weather, flu season)	Summer, festivals and big gaming events lift impulse sales in convenience and petrol.	4%	10%
Demand (weather, flu season)	A health scare dents demand, hardest among younger buyers and parents.	-4%	-10%

All seven categories are live, and the search is limited to the press of the country you play in. If GDELT can't be reached, Countermove uses each category's library of plausible events instead and says so in the brief.

Time

Mode	Length	One turn	Inside a turn
Sprint	One year, in about an hour	One quarter	13 simulated weeks run in under a minute. The clock stops two to four times a quarter for a decision: weekly sell-out, a sales-return (ROAS) readout, a competitor move, macro data or a colleague's call.
Campaign	Three years, at your own pace	One quarter	Each year plays like a sprint. The next year starts where the last ended: share, cash and debt, brand memory and what competitors have learned about you. The campaign score is the average of the three years.
Living world	Four weeks	One quarter = one real week	Locking a quarter starts a seven-day clock. The next brief opens when it runs out, with an optional browser notification.
Scenario	One year, in about an hour	One quarter	A sprint in a hand-built year with scripted news and its own mission (see Scenarios below).
Today's challenge	One year, once a day	One quarter	The day's scenario, the same for everyone. One result per player goes to the daily board.
Class	Set by the teacher	One quarter per sitting, or a whole year	Everyone plays the same market and the same news. Results go to a leaderboard the teacher can hide until the end.

Class mode and the leaderboard

Class mode is live at /class. No accounts are needed.

A teacher creates a class and gets a six-character code. Everyone in the class plays the same market seed and the same news, so scores are comparable.
Students join with the code and a display name, which is filtered like company names. When they finish the year, their decisions go to the server and the engine recomputes the score, so it can't be faked in the browser.
The leaderboard ranks by mission score; ties go to value share, then net income, then name. The teacher can hide it until the year ends.
How the mission score works: Meet every target for 85 points (grade B). Beat them for up to 15 more: A takes 95. Volume bought with extra deals, or loaded into retailers' stock, costs points in proportion (up to 45), because it unwinds next year. The CMO's share target looks further ahead: Q4 share and the share a year on, averaged, because brand building pays back over years.
Storage: each class and its results are kept in Upstash Redis for 120 days, capped at 200 results a class. The teacher holds a private key (only its hash is stored) to reveal, hide or close the board.

Scenarios and today's challenge

A scenario is a hand-built year on top of the normal engine: a fixed market and world, with a scripted headline in every quarter. The script uses the same shock types and caps as any other news (confidence, demand, regulation, listings, channel fees and growth, sponsored AI answers), so nothing about how the market works changes. Scenario headlines are labelled as scenario events wherever they appear; they are not real news. Each scenario has its own mission, tuned so that only a few of the 192 plans held all year meet it, and a plan that changes by quarter does better.

Scenario	What happens	Mission	Markets
Recession year	Confidence falls, shoppers trade down and the category shrinks.	Hold the line: Protect share and profit while the market shrinks.	Soft drinks, United Kingdom; Snacks, Germany; Household care, France
Private-label surge	Retailers push their own label and squeeze branded suppliers.	Defend the shelf: Limit the share own label takes, without a price war.	Snacks, United Kingdom; Coffee, Germany; Household care, Germany
Retailer delisting	A major grocer delists you in Q2 over a terms dispute.	Win the shelf back: Limit the damage from the delisting and win the shelf back.	Snacks, Germany; Household care, United Kingdom; Beauty & personal care, United Kingdom
AI-search shift	Shoppers move to AI assistants and sponsored answers switch on.	Win the AI shelf: Be the brand assistants name and online shoppers pick, without losing profit.	Soft drinks, United States; Beauty & personal care, United States; Coffee, United Kingdom
Levy and regulation year	A levy or new rules land mid-year and raise costs.	Absorb the hit: Keep profit and the share price up through the new rules.	Soft drinks, Germany; Snacks, United Kingdom; Beauty & personal care, France

Recession year. Confidence falls and shoppers trade down to own label and discounters; the category shrinks all year.
Private-label surge. Grocers take more margin to fund their own labels, then cut your shelf space in discounters and supermarkets.
Retailer delisting. A major grocer delists you in Q2 after a terms dispute. Listings come back with trade terms and listing spend.
AI-search shift. Assistants and online channels grow fast and sponsored answers switch on in Q2, so AI share of voice matters much more.
Levy and regulation year. A cost lands in Q3: a sugar levy for drinks, HFSS promotion limits for snacks, microplastics and PFAS rules for beauty and household care.

Play a scenario from Setup (Customise, then Scenarios), set one for a class at /class, or for teams at /match. The server replays the same scripted news when it rescores a class or resolves a match.

Today's challenge at /daily is one scenario world a day, chosen from the UTC date and the same for everyone: the five scenarios take turns, and each comes back in a different market. Each player posts one result a day, scored on the server from the decisions, and the board keeps today and the last 7 days.

Security and safety

No account needed, no tracking cookies and no advertising. Games live in your browser; only what you post to a class, a match, Today's challenge or the Countermove Index is stored on the server (see Privacy).
Every request to the AI routes is validated against a strict schema, size-capped, and rate-limited per visitor and per day. News is fetched on the server, cached for six hours and spaced to respect GDELT's limits.
Company and brand names are filtered for profanity, slurs, religious and political terms and real brand names, in the browser and again on the server.
API keys live only in the hosting environment, never in the code or the browser.