Before we transport you to the wonderful world of chocolate, here are a few headlines that informed our thinking while working on this category.
- Mental Market Share is the primary measure of Mental Availability.
- There is a correlation between Mental Market Share and a brand’s actual Market Share. Deviations here enable the potential cause(s) to be diagnosed.
- Mental Penetration is one of the diagnostic metrics sitting below Mental Market Share. It measures whether a buyer of the category can make a mental link between a brand and a single Category Entry Point (CEP). Our database shows that on average if a category buyer cannot link a CEP to a brand there is only a 4% chance that they purchase this brand.
- You will see from this case study that the brand in focus has a 27% chance of being purchased if the category buyer can link it to a CEP.
- No surprise then that our Case Study recommendation is for the brand featured in this article is to build its Mental Penetration.
The Case Study will show how likely the chocolate brand is to be thought of in buying situations relative to its competitors. We will outline the critical action required to accelerate growth, identifying the most appropriate and valuable Category Entry Points for our brand to target. Finally we demonstrate how the recommendation has the potential to deliver +1ppt Sales Market Share growth.
Background
In a study of circa 200 FMCG brands we have been able to replicate the main premise of Jenni Romaniuk’s book ‘Better Brand Health’ that you increase the probability of growth if your brand is thought of in more buying situations than its competitors, in other words it has stronger Mental Availability.
There are 2 major contributors to making your brand easier to recall in buying situations;
i) Distinctive Assets – “the non-brand name elements that trigger the brand into the memory of category buyers” – Romaniuk, 2016; Sharp & Romaniuk 2010
Guinness is probably the best-in-class example.
ii) Category Entry Points – “the mental pathways that link a brand to a buying situation” – Romaniuk 2022
Here is an example of a Category Entry Point for laundry detergent taken from our research;
I have spilt something on my shirt, (i.e. the ‘buying situation).
My brain will have an already formed mental pathway linking ‘removing a stain’, (the category entry point) to a brand like Persil or Vanish. These brands are ‘easily thought of by me’ and assuming either one is ‘easy to buy’ then I don’t expend further mental energy on thinking about other brands.
It is important to note, as we will demonstrate in this case study, not all Category Entry Points are equal. There is a hierarchy, based on the number of mentions of each CEP by Category Buyers.
For more detail on our methodology and how to complete a Mental Availability Assessment, follow this link. 6 Stages of a Mental Availability Assessment and how this is a critical part of being Market Orientated
Case Study: The wonderful world of chocolate
The importance of classifying the category correctly
When assessing a brand’s Mental Availability and understanding how likely it is to be recalled in buying situations relative to the competition it is critical to classify the category correctly.
Define too narrowly and you may be skewing the results in your favour, which limits the chances of spotting new growth opportunities. Define too widely could result in your brand failing to register as many links as it should.
In our chocolate case study it became clear that during the qualitative process we needed to segment the category into ‘bars’ and ‘boxes’. This enabled us to select a more accurate representation of brands to be included in the quantitative research. This Case Study relates to the sub-category we defined as ‘chocolate boxes’.
Calculating a brand’s Mental Availability and identifying the Category Entry Points that present the best opportunities for growth
Mental Availability:
The benefit of a Mental Availability assessment is that you not only see the results for your brand, but you are benchmarked against a cross section of brands in the category.
The primary measurement of Mental Availability is Mental Market Share.
The power of measuring Mental Market Share is in its correlation with Sales Market Share. Being thought of in more buying situations than your competitors will result in a higher Mental Market Share (MMS) which should then translate into higher Sales Market Share (SMS).
If a brand has high MMS but low SMS then the brand’s potential could be restrained by poor Physical Availability. We see this often with brands within smaller organisations that don’t have the Sales and Distribution infrastructure to build scale. Conversely, if MMS is lower than SMS then the brand might be over reliant on Physical Availability, secured by price promotions, a strong salesforce and good routes to market being established, creating more ‘push’ than ‘pull’. The optimal position is to have a balance of Mental and Physical Availability.
Having understood the potential macro drivers influencing purchase, you are now at the point where you can dive deeper into the data, starting with Mental Penetration.
Mental Penetration is a key diagnostic metric, indicating how many Category Buyers can link the brand to at least one Category Entry Point (CEP). Our research continues to identify small and mid-size brands that are trying to build deep relationships with a small number of buyers at the expense of achieving a critical mass of people able to link the brand to at least one Category Entry Point. In short, this means the brand has no cut-through, and it is doubtful that these non-buyers will be ‘converted’ in the future without new intervention.
As your Mental Penetration score gets higher then increasing your focus on Network Size will be important. Remember, brands grow by building wider, fresher networks.
Network Size is useful as it identifies the average number of CEPs that are linked to a brand by a Category Buyer. Ultimately, the goal is to maximise the chances of being thought of in buying situations by linking the brand to a wide range of category entry points.
The above chart plots 17 brands in the ‘chocolate box’ category. Our case study brand has a low Mental Market Share score, (vertical axis), low Mental Penetration, (horizontal axis) and below average Network Size, (diameter of bubble).
Whilst it can be insightful to understand what drives the success of the brands in the top right hand corner of the chart, it is even more powerful to bench performance against the brands you are going to have to beat first.
The Table below shows that by benchmarking our case study brand’s Mental Availability metrics against the 5 competitors surrounding it, the immediate priorities are more easily identified. In this example, the purchase conversion of those with Mental Penetration is on par with the other 5 brands, as is Network Size. Mental Market Share is lower, but this is driven by the low Mental Penetration. The area of focus needs to be Mental Penetration. That is to say, the brand needs more category buyers to be able to link it to a Category Entry Point. The perfect illustration as to why Jenni Romaniuk considers CEPs to be the building blocks for strong Mental Availability.
Benchmark your Mental Availability performance against the brands you are going to have to beat first.
Category Entry Points
When we complete a Mental Availability assessment for a client we complete these 5 steps;
- Define the category
- Qual. research to identify the retrieval cues or entry points for that category
- Quant. to understand the retrieval cues most frequently used by category buyers in buying situations
- Calculate the Mental Availability scores and understand the category entry points that identify the most potential
- Create a short list of CEPs that keeps the brand’s positioning within the realms that would still be acceptable to current buyers. (Read ‘Positioning: The Battle of your Mind by Ries and Trout, for more on this).
We pick up our Case Study story at point 3.
(Quant. to understand the retrieval cues most frequently used by category buyers in buying situations).
The visualisation below shows the 14 most frequently mentioned Category Entry Points by all Category Buyers in the outer circle, with ‘Treat to make you feel happy’ accounting for 13.1% of all links to the researched brands and therefore ranking highest. The inner circle shows the profile for our case study brand. The CEP that it links to most is ‘Suitable gift for someone’.
As we continue to analyse where our brand over and under-indexes against the total category, the next chart is even more helpful. If the red square is above the blue dot then it has a higher percentage of links as a proportion of its total score compared to the category. The opposite is true if the red square is below the blue dot.
As we hone in on the potential opportunities such as ‘Happy’, ‘Gift’ and ‘Indulgence’ we would then run further statistical analysis to review how these scores compare to the ‘expected’ scores for a brand of its size.
Fast-forwarding the story a little, we land on 5 CEPs that are then validated against the Brand Positioning and Product Positioning.
As we work through the results of the assessment, hypotheses start to surface, the overarching one being the reasonable assumption that growth will come from building Mental Penetration to the level of the 5 competitor brands, which means increasing the number of category buyers who can link a Category Entry Point to our brand from 25% to 40%. The secondary task is to widen the brand’s associations with more CEPs, extending its average score from 3 to 5 over the long term.
(Note; in our database, the leading brands tend to have a Network Size of between 5 & 8, but this is very much category dependent. The brand leader in this chocolate sub-category has a Network Size of 5.5).There are some key variables that can influence future Mental Availability performance, as shown in this hypothesis table.
It is quite common that brands, such as the one featured in this article, target too tightly and over invest in reaching the same group of ‘loyal buyers’. Whilst it is important to keep memories fresh by continuing to reach existing buyers, it is also imperative that brands reach light and non-buyers with their messaging.
As we have already stated, building a set of distinctive brand assets is an important facet of Mental Availability. Yet, far too often brands fail to build strong associations with Category Entry Points, not because the messaging is wrong, but because the branding is weak.
That said, in the pursuit of building a wider set of associations, too many new messages are developed before an association with the primary CEP is established. This results in confusion and a low number of buyers able to make any links. This was the main reason for our case study brand having low Mental Penetration.
To set about tackling the issues and opportunities called out in the hypotheses analysis we recommend using a GROW, FIX, DEFEND structure in order to develop precise objectives. These are headlined on the left hand side of the visual below. On the right you will see 4 of the tactics we recommended.
In our experience, brands that have completed a Mental Availability assessment are much better placed to write tight, compelling briefs that have the potential to excite and liberate an agency.
It is certainly not the case that incorporating CEPs into your communication strategy has to restrict creativity as was hinted at in a recent LinkedIn Post citing the Peroni example above. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kevinchesters_advertising-agency-client-activity-7192145910460510209-ukh_?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
The posts author Kevin Chesters is vastly experienced and has written a really good book called The Creative Nudge, so I accept his premise that this is not a great ad and for associations to be embedded in memory we need creative agencies developing wonderful work that resonates emotionally with the buyers of the category. I think Effie Award winners Mini Cheddars and McVities are perfect examples of this and show how it is possible to convey Category Entry Points whilst entertaining and engaging an audience.
We believe tactics like the ones shown are executed most effectively if they are part of a ‘Two Speed Plan’, a Mark Ritson creation, inspired by the work of Binet & Field. You will increase your chances of winning if the two-speed plan is not only built using an investment variable, for example 50% of funds allocated to the long term and 50% to the short term, but by focussing on Mental and Physical Availability. Not only because of the extensive evidence that brands grow by being easy to think of and easy to buy, as summarised by Byron Sharp and The Ehrenberg Bass Institute and confirmed in SmilingCFO’s own database, but because the measurement of these two concepts can be hardwired to the business metrics that really matter.
In our final case study slide we not only show what the recommendations will deliver in terms of the brand metrics Mental Penetration and Mental Market Share, but what this could mean for the Sales Market Share. Getting to this point means the CFO is only 2 calculations away from being able to see how this plan translates into incremental revenue.
By sharing this case study we hope we have shown that incorporating the concept of Mental Availability into your strategy can complement the brand building tools you already have.
If you are responsible for a brand similar to the ones on the left of the chart, the chances are your primary objectives will be to build Prompted Awareness and Mental Penetration. If you are a more established brand and think you may sit in the middle then write objectives to strengthen Mental Penetration and increase Network Size. If you are a custodian of a leading brand then you need to continue to seek opportunities that will widen the gap between you and the chasing pack. So, make sure you have included these Mental Availability metrics in your brand tracking and are paying particular attention to your non-buyer data.
Good luck! You know where we are if you need any guidance on your journey to reaching the top right hand corner.
Credits:
The Ehrenberg Bass Institute for their scientific approach to identifying the growth laws of marketing.
Recommended reading:
Better Brand Health – Prof Jenni Romaniuk 2023
Mark Ritson: ‘Bothism’ is the cure for marketers’ fascination with pointless conflict Mark Ritson, Marketing Week, Sept 2020
The Long and the Short of It: Balancing Short and Long-Term Marketing Strategies Binet & Field. IPA. 2013
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind: The Battle for Your Mind Ries & Trout 2001
Article author :
Martin Coyle is a former Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Commercial Officer at a global Bevco, with 30 years experience in FMCG. He is an expert in building Mental and Physical Availability, Portfolio Strategy development and aligning organisations behind brand execution.
Connect with Martin on LinkedIn
