by Brand Health Tracking based on Mental Availability By Louise Leitsch
In today’s fiercely competitive market, building a strong brand presence is crucial for businesses seeking success. As companies strive to make their mark in the hearts and minds of consumers, one of the most critical aspects you should measure and track is the Mental Availability of a brand. In March 2023, the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute (Prof. Jenni Romaniuk) published a book, detailing a new way of measuring Brand Health.
What is Mental Availability:
To grow a brand, we need both Physical and Mental Availability. Physical Availability means that a brand is easy to find and easy to buy. So, whenever someone wants to buy a brand, it is actually available at whichever POS the customer might be and it is also easy to buy (e.g., no complicated online transactions).
Mental Availability, on the other hand, means that a brand easily comes to mind in a multitude of so-called category entry points (CEP) which are all situations (e.g. occasions, time points, need states) in which a person starts thinking about buying a product from the category at hand.
Essentially, it’s the position your brand occupies in consumers’ minds. Just like a familiar face in a crowded room stands out, a brand with high mental availability stands out in consumers’ mind during relevant purchase moments.
The Relevance of Survey-Based Market Research:
While Physical Availability can often be measured through distribution, inventory and sales numbers that a brand might have itself, Mental Availability has to be measured in market-research studies in which we expose relevant participants (namely, buyers of the category at hand) to all relevant brands and all relevant category entry points of that category.
Out with the old in with the new:
In the past, brand tracking was often focused on the AIDA approach, looking at brand funnels and conversion rates with KPIs such as Top-of-Mind (TOM), (Un)aided awareness, first choice, NPS and others. While there is nothing inherently wrong with existing methods, they pose barriers for both established brands which often reach a ceiling affected and for newer brands that are overshined by the halo effect of the biggest brands in the tracking. Moreover, while KPIs along the funnel are interesting and can discriminate between different brands, they might not measure what we want to measure. For instance, methods like TOM or aided awareness mostly measure if people can correctly connect a brand to a category (e.g., consumers understand that Red Bull is an energy drink), which is highly interesting for new brands, but for established brands this might be of lesser interest, unless they are moving into a completely new category. The Better Brand Health book gives a clear guidance on how to more effectively and efficiently measure Menta Availability and thereby Brand Health. A key point for this measurement are Category Entry Points (CEPs).
What are Category Entry Points:
CEPs are all situations that serve as entry points into the category at hand, e.g., all needs, motivations or occasions in which a person starts considering purchasing a specific category (e.g., start considering buying a beer). CEPs are always formulated for the whole category and never for a specific brand. They can be created with pre-studies or expert interviews and normally follow W-questions (e.g., Who, When, Where, What, How). Using the beer industry as an example, CEPs could be “A beer that you drink after sports”, “A beer that you drink by the campfire” or “A beer that is drunk at parties”. In market research surveys, the participant is then presented with these categories and then given multiple choice options of brands that have to be matched to these CEPs (e.g., here: Heineken, Corona, Carlsberg, etc.).
Measuring MA using the new method:
Mental Availability is measured using four main KPIs: Mental Penetration (MPen), Network Size (NS), Mental Market Share (MMS), Share of Mind (SOM).
● MPen is the share of category buyers that link a specific brand to at least one CEP. It is similar to brand awareness, but less biased towards big brands.
● NS is the average number of CEPs associated with a specific brand (based on the people who have Mpen for that brand). The stronger and bigger the network of
associations, the more likely a brand is called to mind in a multitude of buying situations.
● MMS is the size of the brand in the category buyers’ minds, relative to all competitors and across all CEPs. This score adds up to a 100% across all competitors and is
strongly correlated with actual market share.
● SOM is very similar to MMS, but it is calculated on the basis of people with MPen (aka brand knowers) for a specific brand only. Mental availability, the ease of brand recall, plays a key role in a competitive market. The method by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute focuses on mental availability, emphasizing a brand’s recall across different situations called Category Entry Points (CEPs). By introducing metrics like Mental Penetration, Network Size, Mental Market Share, and Share of Mind, this approach offers fresh insights into brand positioning, facilitating success in today’s evolving landscape. Appinio is a global market research platform that stands for innovative and straightforward market research. The world’s largest opinion network helps companies to quickly and efficiently survey specific target groups and get representative results in real time. Appinio collects over 7 million opinions from 90+ markets every day.
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