Presented by: Ravinder Singh Atwal Satyajeet Suman

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Professor Byron Sharp Is Director Of The Ehrenbarg Institute For Marketing Science. Professor Byron Sharp Is Also Professor Of Marketing Science At University Of South Australia. His Most Cited (Google Scholar) Work Is On Loyalty Programs. In 1997, With Anne Sharp, He Reported PROFESSOR The First BYRON Empirical SHARP Work IS DIRECTOR Seeking To OF Document THE EHRENBARG The Effect INSTITUTE Of A Loyalty FOR MARKETING Program On Buyer Loyalty. SCIENCE In 2009 He Co-edited A Special Issue Of The Journal Of Advertising Research With Professor Jerry Wind On Empirical Laws In Advertising. In 2010 He Published The Book "How Brands Grow", Oxford University Press. Isbn 978-0-19557356-5.

USP OF THE BOOK

This Book Compells You To Think About The Assumptions Which Marketers Take For Granted.Some Of These Invalid Assumptions Are FollowingPrompting Brand Differentiation Is A Vital Marketing Task . Loyalty Metrics Reflect The Strength, Not Size, Of A Brand Customer Retention Is Cheaper Than Acquisition. Price Promotions Boost Penetration, Not Loyalty.

Who A Brand Competes With Is Dependent On Its Positioning.

Mass Marketing Is Dead And No Longer Of Value. Buyers Have A Special Reason To Buy A Particular Brand. A Brand's Consumers Are A Distinctive Type Of Person. 20% Of A Brand's Heaviest Customers Deliver At Least 80% Of Its Sales.

 Core idea:

IDEA REVIEW

Based on empirical data, we can generalize certain patterns into marketing laws.
Other interesting ideas: Double jeopardy law: Brands with less market share have far fewer buyers, and these buyers are slightly less loyal (in their buying and attitudes). Retention double jeopardy: All brands lose some buyers; this loss is proportionate to their market share. law: 60/20Pareto : Slightly more than half a brands sales come from the bottom 80 % of its customers. Law of buyer moderation: In subsequent time periods heavy buyers buy less often than in the base period that was used to categorize them as heavy buyers. Also, light buyers buy more often and some non-buyers become buyers.

Natural monopoly law: Brands with more market share attract a greater proportion of light category buyers. User bases seldom vary: Rival brands sell to very similar customer bases.

Attitudes and brand beliefs reflect behavioral loyalty: Customers know and say more about brands they use, and think and say little about brands they do not use. Therefore, larger brands always score higher on surveys that assess attitudes to brands because they have more users. Usage drives attitude (or I love my Mum and you love yours): Buyers of different brands express very similar attitudes and perceptions about their respective brands.
Law of prototypicality: Image attributes that describe the product category score higher (i.e. are more commonly associated with a brand) than less prototypical attributes. Duplication of purchase law: A brands customer base overlaps with rival brands in line with its market share

Brand competition and growth is largely about building two market-based assets: physical availability and mental availability. Building mental availability requires distinctiveness and clear branding. Strength of a brands distinctive assets is determined by their uniqueness and prevalence. What marketers should worry about is whether or not their brands are distinctive. Are they easy to recognize and distinguish from others? Memory is the link between an ad and brand choice . The dominant way that advertising works is by refreshing, and occasionally building, memory structures.

EXAMPLES/CASE STUDIES-

There are many case studies and practical demonstrations in Sharp's book. He tackles the issue of perceived difference do buyers need to perceive that the brand they are buying is different? Sharp's (and others') research highlights two robust patterns. First, buyers of a brand perceive very weak differentiation, yet they still loyally buy a particular brand. Second, a brand's level of perceived difference is very similar to its rivals'. Based on quantitative research, Sharp asserts that only 10% of a brand's users think their brand of choice is different. People can indicate a perceived difference when they see one but, for the most part, few perceive genuine differential vertically within categories. Even when considering horizontally, across categories, perceived differential is conservative.

Sharp questions whether perceptions of brand difference drive buyer behaviour. The implication is that it is not essential for marketers to convince buyers a product is different before they buy it. Instead, they need to focus on its distinction. Academic research highlights how awareness and salience play a more significant role in buyer behaviour than previously realised. To coin Sharp's maxim, mental andphysical availability are more paramount than differential alone . Sharp also reveals how loyalty programmes rarely work. He uses double jeopardy to show how brands grow primarily through penetration, not frequency of use. Sharp references Les Binet and Peter Field's 2007 analysis of I PA awarded papers: 82% reported large penetrationgrowth; 6% reported both penetration and loyalty and only 2% reported loyalty growth alone.

TAKEAWAY POINTS Sharp tells us that the most important knowledge contained in his book is that 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 occasionally Brands, even though they are usually slightly differentiated, mainly compete as if they are near lookalikes; but they vary in popularity (and hence market share). Brand competition and growth is largely about building two market-based assets: physical 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.