How we cover the commercial beat

How The Brief works

The Brief is our independent capability assessment of the software and consultancies serving CPG commercial teams. It is editorial, not a paid directory.

1. Every vendor in the field gets a free entry. No vendor is excluded for not paying. The basic profile covers capabilities, HQ, ownership, customers if disclosed.
2. Sponsorship buys enhanced placement only. Sponsors get a logo, longer description, demo-request button, top-of-category placement, and inclusion in newsletter callouts. Sponsorship does not buy favourable assessment language, removal of weak-fit sections, edits to comparison briefs, or suppression of negative coverage.
3. Best-fit and weaker-fit sections are published for every entry. Sponsors get the same balanced treatment as everyone else.
4. Comparisons are written from the buyer's perspective. Comparison briefs (Pricefx vs Vendavo, etc.) are practitioner-led. Vendors can submit factual corrections but cannot edit the structure or verdicts.
5. Sponsor status is always disclosed inline. A "Sponsor" pill appears on every paid placement, on every directory listing, on any homepage callout, and on category landscape pages. Never hidden, never small-print only.
6. Vendor responses are published, not edited in. If a vendor disagrees with an assessment, their response runs as a separate inline block on the brief, attributed to them.

Editorial firewall

The founder and editor of The Consumer Daily, Bulent Kotan, holds a full-time role at Asper.ai, a CPG commercial-AI vendor. To keep editorial credibility:

• Bulent is recused from all editorial decisions about Asper.ai and its direct competitors (Pricefx, Vistex, Vendavo, Vividly, Eversight, Revenue Analytics, Buynomics).
• Asper.ai cannot sponsor The Consumer Daily, and we do not accept sponsorship from any direct Asper competitor while Bulent holds his role there.
• Coverage of Asper.ai and its competitors goes through an independent editorial review before publish. Conflicts are disclosed inline on the relevant page.
• When Bulent leaves the Asper role, this firewall narrows to standard ownership disclosure.

Sourcing and verification

• Every important factual claim on a published page traces to a named, publicly-fetchable source URL. We do not cite "industry sources" without naming them.
• When we cannot verify a specific number, we drop the precision and rephrase qualitatively. We never publish an unverified specific.
• Earnings transcripts are cited and linked, never reproduced. Trade press coverage is summarised in our voice with linkback to the source.
• Our internal audit ledger logs every important claim shipped with its source URL and verification date.

Opinion contributions

We invite senior practitioners to contribute Opinion pieces. Contributors retain a clear byline with their role, company, and LinkedIn. Contributed pieces follow the same factual-verification bar as Pulse-authored work. We edit for voice and clarity, not for point of view. See the contribute page for submission guidelines.

AI in our newsroom

The Consumer Daily uses large language models, currently Claude from Anthropic, to draft news rewrites and category outlooks at scale. Every draft goes through editorial review against a single rule: every important factual claim must trace to a named, publicly fetched source URL. No exception.

The standard the writing is held to is the same whether a human or a model wrote the first draft. We treat AI as a tool that speeds up the rewrite of upstream trade press coverage, not as a source. If a claim cannot be verified against a real URL, we drop the claim or rewrite qualitatively.

The audit ledger logs every important claim shipped with its source URL and verification date, regardless of who or what wrote the first version.

Coverage and voice diversity

The Consumer Daily covers consumer goods commercial intelligence from every region, not just the US and Europe. Asia is core to our beat, alongside Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. A story is in scope based on its commercial significance to the global category, not the geography of the source publication.

Opinion contributors are recruited from across regions and seniority levels. We seek perspectives from commercial practitioners actually doing the work, not only from the consultancy and Big Four mainstream that already dominates B2B publishing.

Corrections

If you spot something wrong, email hello@theconsumerdaily.co. We append a dated correction note to the original page, never a silent edit. Material errors are flagged on the homepage for one day after correction.

Reader feedback

Beyond corrections, we want to hear what is missing from our coverage and what is working. Story tips, source pointers, requests for company or category coverage, and general comments are welcome through our contact page. Substantive feedback gets a reply within a few business days. Patterns from reader mail shape our coverage roadmap.