How Brands Grow
by Byron Sharp
e-Book Edition
Originally published in hardback by Oxford University Press
OXFORD is a trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
Copyright © Byron Sharp 2010
First published 2010, reprinted 2010, 2011, 2012
Revised e-book version 2014
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Sharp, Byron.
How brands grow: what marketers don't know / Byron Sharp.
Includes bibliography.
ISBN 978 0 19 557356 5 (pbk)
1. Marketing. 2. Advertising. 3. Branding (Marketing). 4.Consumer Behavior. 5. Market Research.
658.83
Reviews of How Brands Grow
"Highly practical...includes many groundbreaking ideas."
CHOICE
“More than anything else, I’m just plain envious. It’s a book I wish I had the intelligence to write....
Reading Sharp's critique of the cult of differentiation made me smile. And I laughed out loud at his characterisation of supposedly committed consumers as uncaring cognitive misers.”
Marketing Week (UK)
"Marketers need to move beyond the psycho-babble and read this book... or be left hopelessly behind."
Joseph Tripodi, Chief Marketing & Commercial Officer
The Coca-Cola Company, Atlanta USA
"Until every marketer applies these learnings, there will be a competitive advantage for those who do."
Mitch Barns, CEO
The Nielsen Company
"A scientific journey that reveals and explains with great rigour the Laws of Growth."
Bruce McColl, Chief Marketing Officer
Mars Inc.
"This book puts marketing's myth-makers, of which there are many, in their proper place."
Thomas Bayne, CEO
MountainView Learning, London.
Author
Byron Sharp
Dr Byron Sharp is Professor of Marketing Science, and the Director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, at the University of South Australia. The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute's research is used and financially supported by many of the world's leading corporations, including Coca-Cola, Colgate-Palmolive, First National Bank, General Motors, Procter & Gamble, Turner Broadcasting, ESPN, and Unilever.
Byron has published over 100 academic papers and is on the editorial board of five journals. He recently co-hosted with Professor Jerry Wind two conferences at the Wharton Business School on the laws of advertising, and co-edited the 2009 and 2013 special issues of the Journal of Advertising Research on scientific laws of advertising.
His university textbook “Marketing: theory, evidence, practice” (Oxford University Press) was released in 2013.
www.ByronSharp.com
Contributors
John Dawes
Dr John Dawes is Associate Professor at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, University of South Australia. John has an extensive background in sales and marketing prior to becoming an academic researcher. He has published in journals such as the Journal of Services Research, Wall Street Journal, International Journal of Market Research, and the Journal of Brand Management. John is the editor of the Journal of Empirical Generalisations in Marketing Science (EMPGENS) www.empgens.com.
www.JohnDawes.com.au
Jenni Romaniuk
Dr Jenni Romaniuk is Research Professor and Associate Director (International) of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, at the University of South Australia. Jenni's research covers brand equity, brand image tracking, how to use advertising to build brands, and how to understand and use the brand perception-behaviour link.
Jenni has published in journals such as the Journal of Business Research, Journal of Marketing Management, Marketing Theory, European Journal of Marketing, International Journal of Market Research, and the Journal of Financial Services Marketing. She is executive editor (International) of the Journal of Advertising Research. For the past ten years she has been providing research on brand strategy to companies in industries as diverse as retail, food, tourism, financial services, insurance, telecommunications, universities, event management and government departments.
www.JenniRomaniuk.com
John Scriven
John Scriven was previously director of the Ehrenberg Centre at London South Bank University. John specialises in the study of brand performance measures and the effects of marketing inputs, particularly price and advertising. He has over 20 years experience in marketing, market research and marketing planning having held marketing positions with three major corporations: United Biscuits, RJR/Nabisco and Pepsico.
Preface
Marketing is a creative profession. So is architecture: architects design masterpieces like the Taj Mahal and the Sydney Opera House, but architects use their creativity within a framework of physical laws. Architects must design buildings that will not collapse under their own weight or blow over in a breeze; they cannot choose to ignore the law of gravity, or hope their building is immune to the laws of physics.
Marketers, even senior marketing academics, like to say that there can be no laws concerned with marketing. These people argue that consumers are far too individual and unpredictable. Research has shown this is utter nonsense. This ill-founded belief stops academics doing their job and searching for law-like patterns in buying behaviour and marketing effects. It also allows marketers to carry on with 'anything goes' marketing plans. Imagine if architects designed 'anything goes' plans – “Let's build out of fairy-floss', 'Let's add another 68 floors!”
Marketers argue with each other about things that have nothing to do with the creativity of the discipline; about things that should be known for certain. It's time for this to stop. This book reveals the predictable patterns in how buyers buy, and how sales grow – things all marketers should know, not argue about.
These patterns are valuable knowledge. It's often thought that great marketing strategy is obvious – with hindsight everyone can see what you did and copy you. This might be true for new products or some advertising campaigns, but in reality marketing offers the ability to outperform competitors while they scratch their heads wondering why on earth you are doing so well. Unfortunately, marketers themselves often have no idea why one of their own campaigns worked and others did not. Their explanations as to what they got right or wrong are often wide of the mark because their assumptions (the theories in their head) are wrong.
This book is for marketers who are willing to learn new things based on classical science, and to shake off the superstition (and unfounded speculation) that today passes for marketing theory.
Read the assumptions in Table 1.
Table 1: Marketing assumptions
Strategic Assumptions True, False, or
Don’t Know?
Differentiating our brand is a vital marketing task?
Loyalty metrics reflect the strength, not size, of our brand?
Customer retention is cheaper than acquisition?
Price promotions boost penetration not loyalty?
Who we compete with depends on the positioning of our brand image?
Mass marketing is dead, no longer competitive?
Our buyers have a special reason why they buy our brand?
Our consumers are a distinctive type of person?
Our heaviest 20% of customers deliver at least 80% of our sales?
If you believe that most of these are true, you are operating under many false assumptions. This book will give you the evidence. If it changes your mind it might revolutionise your marketing.
Table 2: Towards a new view of marketing priorities
Past World View New World View
Positioning Salience
Differentiation Distinctiveness
Message Comprehension Getting noticed, emotional response
Unique Selling Propositions Relevant associations
Persuasion Refreshing & building memory structures
Teaching Reaching
Rational involved viewers Emotional distracted viewers
The most important knowledge contained in this book
No marketing activity, including innovation, should be seen as a goal in itself, its goal is to hold on to or improve mental and physical availability.
Decades of research into how buyers buy and how brands compete has led to these surprising conclusions:
1.Growth in market share comes by increasing popularity; that is, by gaining many more buyers (of all types), most of whom are light customers buying the brand only very occasionally.
2.Brands, even though they are usually slightly differentiated, mainly compete as if they are near lookalikes; though they vary in popularity (and hence market share).
3.Brand competition and growth is largely about building two market-based assets: physical availability and mental availability. Brands that are easier to buy – for more people, in more situations – have more market share. Innovation and differentiation (when they work) build market-based assets, which last after competitors copy the innovation.
Therefore, marketers need to improve the branding of their product (i.e. it needs to look like them and only them) and to continuously reach large audiences of light buyers cost effectively. Marketers need to research what their distinctive brand assets are (colours, logos, tone, fonts, etc.); they need to use and protect these. Managers also need to research how buyers buy their brand, when they think of and notice it, and how it fits into their lives (and shopping). Marketers need to manage media and distribution in line with this knowledge.
Advertising works largely by refreshing, and occasionally building, memory structures (and less by convincing rational minds or winning emotional hearts). Marketers need to research these memory structures and ensure that their advertising refreshes these structures by consistently using the brand's distinctive assets.
In short, there is a great deal to learn, and much to be discovered, about sophisticated mass marketing.
Tables 3, 4 and 5 summarise old and new aspects of marketing.
Table 3: Consumer behaviour
Consumer Behavior
Past World View Attitude Drives Behavior Brand
Loyals Brand
Switchers Deeply Committed Buyers Involvement Rational Involved Viewers
New World
View
Behavior
Drives Attitude Loyal
Switchers Loyal
Switchers Uncaring Cognitive Misers Heuristics Emotional Distracted Viewers
Table 4: Brand performance
Brand Performance
Past World View Growth Through Targeting
Brand Loyals Obscure Proprietary Metrics Price Promotions
Win New Customers Target Marketing Differentiation
New World
View
Growth
Through Penetration Predictable Transparent Metrics Price Promotions Only Reach Existing Loyal Customers Sophisticated Mass Marketing Distinctiveness
Table 5: Advertising
Advertising
Past World View Positioning Message Comprehension Unique Selling Propositions Persuasion Teaching Campaign Bursts
New World
View
Salience Getting Noticed, Emotional Response Relevant Associations Refreshing & Building Memory Structures Reaching Continuous Presence
Examples in this book
The scientific laws presented in this book apply to many categories:
•products and services
•industrial products
•supermarket packaged goods
•national and retailer brands
•brand buyingand store choice.
The laws apply across countries and have held for decades. This is why they can provide useful predictions.
I've tried to demonstrate the breadth of generalisation by deliberately using diverse examples; for example, retention levels for both cars in France and banks in Australia. I am grateful to Nielsen and Kantar for providing data spanning many countries. Please don't infer that just because the example refers to, say, UK store brands, that the law doesn't apply to your category. If you are in doubt, please refer to the cited references, as these will provide further examples that illustrate the breadth of the law.
Acknowledgements
The empirical laws in this book might not have been discovered without the years of research that has been funded by corporations around the world. In particular I would like to thank the following corporations for their many years of continuing support of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute:
ABC
ANZ Bank
Bristol-Myers Squibb
CBS
Coca-Cola
ConAgra Foods
Elders
Fonterra Brands
Goodman Fielder
Kraft
Mars
National Pharmacies
PepsiCo
Roy Morgan Research
Sun Products
Unilever
Wm. Wrigley Jr Company
Advertising Research Foundation
Australian Research Council
British Airways
Colgate-Palmolive
Distell
ESPN
General Mills
Highland Distillers
Kantar
KWP! Advertising
Mondelez
Nielsen
Procter & Gamble
Reckitt Benckiser
SA Dept for Environment
& Heritage
University of South Australia
AkzoNobel
BASES
Caxton Publishing
Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Dulux
FirstRand
General Motors
Hills Industries
Kellogg’s
Leo Burnett
MountainView Learning
Network Ten
People’s Choice Credit Union
SABMiller
SC Johnson
Turner Broadcasting
Special thanks
Thank you to the readers of the original version of this book for making it such a success. Thank you for your kind words, and your very interesting questions - please keep asking them, you can contact me through the book’s official website.
I would like especially to thank my wife Anne and daughter Lilith, and my colleagues in the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, University of South Australia. I would also like to thank our collaborators at universities around the world – especially Professor Jerry Wind at Wharton.
Special thanks also are due to Dr Thomas Bayne at Mountainview Learning for working with me to introduce behavioural science to marketing executives around the world. The graduates from this training are ushering in a new era of evidence-based marketing for the corporations they work for.
E-book version
Hundreds of small improvements have been made to this new version. New material has been added on:
•category growth
•profitability and loyalty
•industrial buying
•an additional law on physical availability and growth
•a ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ chapter
•an expanded bibliography pointing readers to the many relevant peer-reviewed scientific publications.
There are new examples and data, for example, new tables showing Apple’s brand loyalty. A number of tables have been updated that will allay any fears that the scientific laws might not continue to apply.
Chapter 1:
Evidence-based Marketing
Byron Sharp
Imagine you are the Insights Dir
ector of Colgate Palmolive. Margaret, the Senior Category Manager for toothpaste, is standing at your office door and she is obviously distressed. She is waving a recently received report from your global market research supplier, and this is what it shows:12
Figure 1.1: Toothpaste brands: US market shares (volume)
Data source: Spaeth & Hess 1989.
The market research shows that Procter & Gamble's Crest brand of toothpaste has double the market share of Colgate in the US. However, this has long been known and is not the reason why Margaret is upset. It's the next couple of graphs that have her worried (see Figures 1.2 and 1.3).
Figure 1.2: Crest consumer base
Data source: Spaeth & Hess 1989.
Figure 1.3: Colgate consumer base
Data source: Spaeth & Hess 1989.
These charts decompose the sales volume of each rival brand according to the recent repeat-buying behaviour of their consumers.
The percentage of Colgate's sales that came from loyal customers is almost half that of Crest's loyals ('loyals' being people who bought the brand for the majority of their toothpaste purchasing during the analysis period). Colgate's sales come much more from 'switchers' – people who bought Colgate at least once in the analysis period, although most of their buying was of other brands.
Margaret is demanding an explanation. What does this mean? Why is Colgate's sales base so unhealthy? Is the brand doomed? What does this mean for her ambitious growth targets?
How would you answer?
Of course, you would call for more research. It's an Insight Director's prerogative.
The additional research further breaks down the market share of each company by analysing the switchers within both the Crest and Colgate customer bases.