This blog explores Category Entry Points and how they are a key factor in how brands grow. Category Entry Points are foundational to Better Brand Health Tracking studies and contribute to several key metrics/analyses that brands can use to make better business decisions.
Table of Contents:
- What are Category Entry Points?
- Types of CEPs
- The 7W framework: Identifying meaningful Category Entry Points
- How CEPs drive Mental Availability and brand growth
- CEPs and Better Brand Health Tracking (BBHT)
- Measuring Category Entry Points with quantilope
What are Category Entry Points?
Developed by Byron Sharp and Jenni Romaniuk of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, Category Entry Points (CEPs) are the needs, occasions, or situations that lead a consumer to think about a product category and the brands within it. CEPs represent the ‘triggers’ or ‘prompts’ that initiate the consumer journey within a particular category (such as body wash or packaged snacks) and are a core element of quantilope’s Better Brand Health Tracking (BBHT) solution. You can think about CEPs as the metaphorical doors through which consumers enter a category in their minds.
Understanding these triggers for consumer buying behavior is crucial for brand growth. Unlike traditional market research funnel metrics, like brand awareness, CEPs go a step further to understand which brands are top-of-mind when a consumer has a particular need to solve (a crucial moment in the buying journey).
Understanding the role of CEPs in consumer decision-making
Brands that consumers easily recall as they think about a specific buying or usage situation are ultimately the ones that consumers buy; this is known as Mental Availability (how readily ‘available’ brands are in consumers’ minds when they’re shopping in that brand’s category - sometimes also referred to as brand salience). This differs from Physical Availability - how easy it is for a potential customer to find and purchase a product or service.
Brands build Mental Availability through effective CEP connections. CEPs are also the building blocks for different Mental Availability metrics (described below), making them central to how brands grow, influencing everything from customer acquisition to retention. They’re the bridge between a consumer's need and a brand's solution.
There are four Mental Availability metrics that are all based on a brand’s CEP-connections:
- Mental Market Share: How present a brand is in consumers' minds with regard to all (CEPs) and brands.
- Mental Penetration: Number of participants with at least one CEP association for a given brand
- Network Size: Average number of CEP associations per brand, among those with at least one CEP association for that brand.
- Share of Mind: Share of CEP associations with a selected focus brand, among those with at least one CEP association for that focus brand.
quantilope’s platform automatically generates these metrics using the following calculations:
Types of CEPs
CEPs are multifaceted and we can categorize them in a number of ways. Sometimes, researchers compare CEPs with ‘Jobs to be Done’ (JTBD) - the idea you can ‘hire’ a brand to do a job. Both are ways to understand a category from a buyer’s point of view, rather than a brand’s perspective. Where they differ slightly is that CEPs are based on decades of psychological research on human memory.
Because CEPs focus less on Physical Availability/convenience (as JTBD often does), CEPs are a great way to truly understand underlying motivations and memories that drive a consumer to a category. Most often, these are needs or situations:
Needs vs. situations
CEPs are often driven by either a specific need (e.g., "I need a pain reliever") or a situation (e.g., "I have a headache after a long day"). While needs are more general and enduring, situations are more specific, contextual, and often fleeting. Both are equally important for brands to consider when developing their business plan, working on new product development, or crafting a marketing strategy.
A brand might address a general need with a core product and overarching messaging, but then tailor promotions and marketing communications to specific situations to maximize relevance and impact. Understanding these nuances and the types of CEPs within a market allows marketing teams to craft more effective brand positioning campaigns.
To effectively determine which CEPs to include in their study, brands can follow the 7W framework, as described below.
Back to Table of Contents
The 7W framework: Identifying meaningful Category Entry Points
To ensure your CEPs lead to actionable metrics, you want to think of all the possible scenarios when consumers might be motivated to shop in your brand’s category. To help guide this brainstorming, brands often use the 7W framework: why, when, where, while, with whom, with what, and hoW consumers are feeling. Check out this Coles case study to hear more about how they leveraged this process.
1. Why: Consumer motivations to shop in a category
Understanding the "why" behind consumer behavior is essential when developing effective CEPs; this is what separates a BBHT study from a traditional tracking study, where the latter typically only focuses on the "what" but misses capturing the "why".
When thinking about why consumers shop in your category, consider underlying reasons. Are they seeking a solution to a problem (e.g., thirst)?; fulfilling a desire (e.g., a treat)?; addressing an emotional need (e.g., comfort)? Understanding the why helps brands connect with category buyers on a deeper level and tailor their messaging accordingly, focusing on the core value proposition.
2. When: Situations that trigger category consideration
Think about the specific times, occasions, or events that prompt consumers to think about your category. Is your category part of a daily routine (e.g., drinking coffee in the morning)?; a special event (e.g., a birthday party)?; a particular time of year (e.g., holiday gifts)? Identifying these "when" moments allows brands to target consumers with relevant messaging at the right times.
3. Where: Locations and contexts that influence decisions
Where are consumers when they consider products in your category? Are they at home, at work, in a store, online? Understanding "where" consumers are helps brands create relevant messaging that features similar situations. For example, many cleaning products use home kitchens as a backdrop for their commercials while snack/coffee companies often use office spaces. Knowing the context of where consumers engage with your products or services can help improve marketing efforts.
4. While: Co-activities done while using the category product
What other activities are consumers engaged with when they use products/services in your category? Are they simultaneously watching TV, exercising, or commuting? For example, maybe consumers are often watching a movie while eating snacks or playing tennis when they apply sunscreen. Understanding these influential activities helps brands develop products and messages that seamlessly integrate into consumers' lives (e.g. ‘movie theater butter’ popcorn or ‘sport’ sunscreens).
5. With/for whom: Social influences on category engagement
Who are consumers with when they consider or use products in your category? Are they alone, with family, friends, or colleagues? Social influences play a significant role in purchasing decisions, and understanding the "with whom" helps brands tailor their messaging to different social contexts and also aids in product development. Consider ‘family size’ bags of potato chips and single-serve packs of yogurt, where consumption context influences both marketing appeal and product size.
6. With/for What: Other products associated with your category
Similar to how the above focuses on contextual personal relationships within your category, this ‘W’ focuses on contextual relationships with other products or services. Consider complementary or substitute products, like how conditioner is typically bought with shampoo or how energy drinks might be purchased in place of coffee. This particular aspect of CEPs helps brands unveil key product associations and relationships, potentially even paving the way for effective brand partnerships.
7. HoW feeling: Emotional states that impact decision-making
Lastly, which emotional states influence consumers' decisions in this category? Are they feeling stressed, happy, tired, or excited? Understanding this element in the framework helps brands craft messaging that resonates with consumers' emotional states, creating a deeper connection.
Back to Table of Contents
How CEPs drive Mental Availability and brand growth
The best part about CEPs is that they’re not just abstract or theoretical constructs; they have a direct impact on brand performance.
The connection between CEPs and consumer recall
Through understanding and addressing CEPs, brands can increase their Mental Availability – the likelihood that a consumer will think of their brand when a need or situation arises. When a consumer encounters a relevant CEP (like going on a vacation, feeling hungry, or needing energy), they are more likely to recall brands that have effectively associated themselves with that specific trigger/CEP.
Building Mental Market Share through CEP optimization
Improved Mental Availability is measured by an increase in Mental Market Share (MMS) - where brands with high MMS are the default choice when consumers experience a CEP. Oftentimes, Mental Market Share directly correlates to sales market share, meaning brand growth and profitability.
Aligning CEPs with brand positioning for competitive advantage
CEPs can provide the basis for brand positioning and strong brand associations. Consider Dove’s emphasis on being ‘for moisturized skin’, how Snickers focuses on ‘when you’re hungry’ or how Corona depicts ‘on the beach’ in most of their respective marketing efforts. When brands center their strategies around CEPs that resonate with their target audience and reinforce their brand values, they create a powerful and sustainable competitive advantage.
Back to Table of Contents
CEPs and Better Brand Health Tracking (BBHT)
To make actionable business decisions based on CEPs, brands need to track their performance and identify areas for improvement. This is where Better Brand Health Tracking comes in.
The importance of BBHT
Better Brand Health Tracking (BBHT) is crucial for understanding how a brand is performing for key CEPs and can help identify opportunities for improvement. BBHT provides data-driven insights into consumer perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors related to specific CEPs. This solution goes a step further than traditional brand tracking by incorporating the four key metrics for Mental Availability mentioned above, along with Mental Advantage analysis which informs brands of how they’re performing on a specific CEP, relative to expectations (based on brand size and how typical CEPs are to the category as a whole).
All these elements of BBHT generate much more actionable insights than traditional funnel metrics, with context around the "why", not just the "what". It helps identify white space opportunities in a given market and helps brands effectively allocate their resources. CEPs are the foundation for all of BBHT’s unique advantages.
Back to Table of Contents
Measuring Category Entry Points with quantilope
quantilope’s Consumer Intelligence Platform offers an automated solution for Better Brand Health Tracking with CEPs. It’s just one of the many automated solutions and advanced methodologies available through the platform, arming businesses with advanced, data-backed decisions to support brand strategy.
How quantilope identifies and tracks CEPs
quantilope BBHT projects begin with an Inspiration Workshop where we bridge human category experts with existing research and AI to brainstorm CEPs according to the 7W framework. Using the results from that brainstorming session, we then move onto a templated BBHT ‘pre-study’ to narrow down the CEPs to use in the official BBHT tracker. This pre-study includes a Single Implicit Association Test (SIAT) to determine the CEPs with the highest implicit reach - or penetration - among the target audience to track over time.
Next, brands will launch their BBHT leveraging quantilope’s automated solution (which includes an automated survey setup, analysis and always-on insights dashboard ) and monitor results in real-time. All 4 key Mental Availability metrics automatically populate with new data as respondents complete the survey. Brands can customize the automated charts, reports, and dashboards long before fieldwork is complete (again, with any new data automatically updating charts as it’s available), considerably shortening the time to insights.
Using AI-powered insights to improve Mental Availability
quantilope users also have the option of leveraging the platform’s integrated AI co-pilot, quinn, which can suggest study inputs, generate chart headlines, and summarize entire dashboards with the click of a button. quinn will often extract insights or patterns in the data that research teams may have missed on their own.
Through quantilope’s AI-driven features built throughout the platform – alongside quinn – brands are able to proactively address emerging trends and adapt their strategies before competitors catch up.
Ready to drive your brand growth? Get in touch below to learn more about CEPs and BBHT with quantilope!
