Unlocking Brand Growth With Insights from Byron Sharp's 'How Brands Grow'

Byron Sharp's 'How Brands Grow' is a game-changer in the marketing industry, offering a perspective on brand growth that has inspired and enlightened countless marketers.?

His empirical research challenges what has been hailed as conventional marketing wisdom, providing new insights into how brands can effectively increase their market share and achieve sustainable growth.

Sharp outlines some core principles, including increasing physical and mental availability. He also considers a better understanding of consumer behaviour and rethinking the emphasis on customer loyalty.

In this article, we will provide a practical overview of these principles and how you can immediately apply them to your brand-building efforts, empowering you to drive growth.?

The Core Principles of Brand Growth

Increasing Physical Availability

Physical availability is all about making your brand easy to find and easy to buy. Sharp argues that for a brand to grow, it must be ubiquitous and overall accessible to people.?

This means making sure that your product is present in as many locations as possible, whether that's convenience stores, supermarkets, physical stores, online stores, or any other point of sale. This increases the chances that customers will encounter it when making purchasing decisions.

Increasing Mental Availability

Consumers prefer to do things that are cognitively easy, also when making purchases. Therefore, brands need to make their brands easy to recall and think about what Sharp calls “mental availability”. How can they do that? Brands can create strong memory structures and be top-of-mind through consistent and distinctive marketing communications.

Mental availability, as Sharp emphasises, is the key to successful brand recall. By understanding this concept, you can be reassured that your marketing strategies are on the right track.?

The Double Jeopardy Law

Double Jeopardy is a concept introduced by Sharp that posits that brands with a smaller customer base also tend to have lower customer loyalty. According to this concept, increasing the number of customers (penetration) naturally leads to an increase in loyalty.

In other words, a larger customer base not only means more potential sales but also a higher likelihood of repeat business, as more customers are exposed to the brand and have the opportunity to develop a relationship with it.?

This implies that focusing on prioritising the acquisition of new customers over solely retaining existing customers can lead to greater long-term loyalty. This means that putting effort into attracting new customers may have a more significant impact on loyalty in the long run than just focusing on keeping the current customer base.

Brands Aren't Built on Loyalty Alone

Despite common assumptions, brand growth is not primarily driven by consumer loyalty. The key to growth lies in expanding the customer base and reaching a larger audience. When a brand achieves a broad and substantial customer base, loyalty tends to naturally follow.?

Expanding the reach of the brand and acquiring new customers are essential components of enhancing brand presence and driving sustainable growth. Increasing the brand's visibility across various channels and effectively engaging with potential customers while nurturing existing relationships are key strategies for achieving long-term brand expansion and success.

Go Big and Go Wide

According to Sharp, broad targeting is more effective than niche marketing because it increases mental availability and enables reaching a larger audience. This approach helps to ensure that the brand is more accessible to a wide range of potential customers.

By engaging with a broader audience, a brand can enhance its visibility and be more likely to be top-of-mind when consumers have a need, ultimately leading to increased brand recognition and customer consideration.

How AudienceProject Can Help

These principles have been adopted by many successful brands. However, due to the proliferation of marketing channels at a marketers’ disposal, the fragmented media consumption of consumers and a tightening of media budgets, the quest to maximise reach and increase mental availability requires continuous work.

AudienceProject’s cross-media measurement platform, AudienceReport, helps advertisers better understand the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns, allowing for in-flight budget optimisation whilst also delivering key insights to inform future planning.?

Our solution has been proven to help some of the world’s leading brands reach more target consumers and increase mental availability in a cost-effective way, making it easier than ever to propel your brand towards sustained growth.

For more information on how AudienceProject can support your brand growth strategy, get in touch with us today!