Evidence · Brand growth

Mental and physical availability: what the research shows

Brands are bought when they come to mind in a buying situation (mental availability) and are easy to find and buy (physical availability). Peer-reviewed studies link brand salience to choice and to defection, and distribution to market share. The popular category entry point method, by contrast, is documented mostly in reports from one research group.

Definition

Mental availability is the probability that a brand comes to mind when a buyer is in a buying situation. It rests on memory links between the brand and the situations through which buyers enter the category, often called category entry points (for example, a quick lunch, a gift, a new contract). Physical availability is how easy the brand is to notice, find and buy where and when people shop. Together they are the two market-based assets that explain why one brand is chosen over another.

What the research finds

Salience, not attitude, predicts choice

Brand salience is best measured as the number of memory links a brand has to buying situations, not as the strength of one positioning message. In subscription markets, customers who later leave already show weaker salience for their brand before they defect.^[1]^[2]

Big brands have more associations, not different ones

Larger brands attract disproportionately more image associations across almost every attribute, a natural-monopoly pattern. Awareness on its own raises the chance of choice even for an ordinary repeat-purchase product.^[3]^[4]

Advertising builds and refreshes memory links

The effect of advertising on mental availability can be measured directly as a change in the network of links between the brand and buying situations. The same salience logic carries over to choosing a charity.^[5]^[6]

Distribution and market share move together, non-linearly

Market share rises faster than distribution: larger brands gain more from each additional outlet. For mature packaged-goods brands, distribution has a much larger long-term effect on sales than advertising or discounts, and how strongly sales respond to distribution differs across countries.^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10]

In B2B, entry points are purchase triggers

For business buyers, category entry points look like events: a contract renewal, a budget cycle or a new compliance requirement. This translation is so far described in industry reports rather than peer-reviewed studies.^[11]

How strong is the evidence?

The links between salience and choice, and between distribution and market share, rest on peer-reviewed studies across many markets. The category entry point method itself is documented mainly by one research institute and by non-peer-reviewed industry reports, so claims about how many entry points a brand owns, or about targeting by entry point, should be treated as promising rather than established. Physical availability in B2B (being findable, easy to buy from, compatible with procurement) is an extension of consumer findings; it has not been measured directly.

References

Jenni Romaniuk, Byron Sharp (2004). Conceptualizing and Measuring Brand Salience. Marketing Theory.
Jenni Romaniuk, Byron Sharp (2003). Brand Salience and Customer Defection in Subscription Markets. Journal of Marketing Management.
Lara Stocchi, Vipul Pare, Rachel Fuller, Malcolm Wright (2017). The Natural Monopoly Effect in Brand Image Associations. Australasian Marketing Journal (AMJ).
Emma K. Macdonald, Byron Sharp (2000). Brand Awareness Effects on Consumer Decision Making for a Common, Repeat Purchase Product: A Replication. Journal of Business Research.
Kelly Vaughan, Armando Maria Corsi, Virginia Beal, Byron Sharp (2021). Measuring Advertising's Effect on Mental Availability. International Journal of Market Research.
Liem Viet Ngo, Gary Gregory, Ryan Miller, Lu Lu (2022). Understanding the Role of Brand Salience in Brand Choice Decisions in the Charity Sector. Australasian Marketing Journal.
David J. Reibstein, Paul Farris (1995). Market Share and Distribution: A Generalization, a Speculation, and Some Implications. Marketing Science.
M. Berk Ataman, Harald J. van Heerde, Carl F. Mela (2010). The Long-Term Effect of Marketing Strategy on Brand Sales. Journal of Marketing Research.
Hannes Datta, Harald J. van Heerde, Marnik G. Dekimpe, Jan‐Benedict E.M. Steenkamp (2022). Cross-National Differences in Market Response: Line-Length, Price, and Distribution Elasticities in 14 Indo-Pacific Rim Economies. Journal of Marketing Research.
Eunkyu Lee, Richard Staelin, Weon Sang Yoo, Rex Yuxing Du (2013). A “Meta-Analysis” of Multibrand, Multioutlet Channel Systems. Management Science.
Jenni Romaniuk (2022). Category Entry Points in a B2B World: Linking Buying Situations to Brand Sales. LinkedIn B2B Institute (report).

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