Customer question
Our client, a global FMCG manufacturer in personal care, was looking for ways to further develop the brand and increase market share. In this nominated case study for a personal care brand, category entry points are examined to find brackets to increase mental market share. Byron Sharp's idea of mental availability, which together with physical availability is responsible for brand growth, plays an important role in this.
Category entry points as building blocks of mental availability
DVJ Insights developed an approach based on the academic work of Jenni Romaniuk of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. She provided an empirically proven model to measure mental market share. The building blocks of mental availability are the Category Entry Points (CEPs) – situations and moments when consumers think of certain products and brands. Consider, for example, the moment of using a body lotion: always after a shower or when the skin feels dry. If a consumer positively associates a specific CEP with the brand, this stimulates purchasing behaviour. So understanding CEPs offers concrete opportunities for brand growth by linking products to relevant situations and 'occasions'.
Approach and result
In order to detect as many growth opportunities as possible, the research was conducted in two phases. In phase 1, the current category entry points of various product categories of the brand and of the competition were mapped out with the aid of storytelling . This provides insight into when consumers use a product, why, in what context, for what purpose, et cetera. Using AI modeling, the most important CEPs per category were identified from all consumer stories. In phase 2, the frequency and mental market share of each CEP was then determined. This provides insight into where the customer's (or competitor's) brands are under- or over-performing and ultimately which CEPs are most promising for brand growth.
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