We often talk about a brand’s visibility or popularity. But why is it so important for a brand to be popular for growth? Isn’t enough to simply convert and sell bunch of products?
The results of a well-known study ( Binet & Field ) demonstrate how brand popularity is closely correlated with market share growth. In the long run, popular companies, those “on everyone’s lips,” grow, often regardless of how diversified they are from their competitors.
Yes, even in B2B.
In marketing, branded content aims to increase a brand’s popularity by associating it with content—articles, audio, or video – that represents its values. This content may include the brand or product, but does not involve direct promotion, to overcome user intolerance for more invasive forms of advertising.
Share of Voice (SOV), is a measure of a brand’s popularity and its presence in industry conversations, which significantly impacts a company’s sales and long-term growth. The higher the SOV, the greater the brand’s popularity and authority among current and future customers. A brand’s growth rate depends heavily on its SOV, and specifically on whether it is greater or less than its market share (Share of Market). Market share growth, as in B2C, is directly proportional to the difference between SOV and SOM, even in B2B.
Binet and Field demonstrated the relationship between
Share of Voice and Share of Market at various levels.
SOV > SOM = brand increases market share
SOV < SOM = brand loses market share
Growth is directly proportional to ESOV = SOV - SOM (%)
When average ESOV = 10%, in B2B, the company achieves annual growth of 0.7%-0.6% in terms of market share, but in some sectors, growth is greater than 1.5%.
Increasing brand popularity tends to increase market share in the long term.
Furthermore, companies that dedicate a higher-than-average share of their budget to brand building position themselves in the premium price segment.
Correct budget allocation by sector: brand building always accounts for more than 50%.
In the short term (0-6 months), sales increases are due to sales activation strategies. Beyond 6 months, brand building dominates.
Brand popularity and visibility in both B2B and B2C remain key factors in achieving market share growth and therefore long-term profits.
- Brand building campaigns maximize profits.
- Brand popularity is the long-term sales driver.
- The number of “big sales” generated annually by brand awareness is, on average, three times higher than those generated by sales activation programs.
- The optimal marketing budget allocation should be between 60% and 40% for brand building programs.
The research analyzed 996 IPA cases over a 30-year period, including 700 brands in 83 categories. Binet and Field discovered that the marketing world’s short-term myopia negatively impacted long-term brand value. They explained that you cannot build long-term customer trust solely with 3-month performance campaigns, “stacking” them in an effort to create brand value over time. While it is true that brands need periodic sales activations.