Karen Chandler

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Measuring Category Entry Points (CEPs) is a crucial step for brand marketing for several reasons. Firstly, by understanding the specific moments or situations your consumers are most likely to engage with your brand, you can create targeted marketing strategies that drive conversions. Secondly, by identifying and prioritising CEPs, you can concentrate your budget and resources on the touchpoints that will have the most impact, maximising your ROIs. Next, an understanding of your CEPs also offers you a competitive advantage, by not only enabling you to better understand your customer journey and its pain points, but also where you can outperform your competition, helping you to capture more market share. Finally, CEP measurements help brands identify areas for growth and innovation, increasing their market penetration.

But how do you build CEPs into your marketing if you’ve never measured them before?

Building a CEP-centric marketing plan

Define your CEPs

Start by identifying the key moments or situations when consumers engage with your brand. Here at Nepa, we suggest a qualitative approach to uncovering the full range of CEPs that lead consumers to your category.

Quantify and prioritise the key CEPs

A thorough quantitative deep-dive will help you identify the key CEPs your brand should focus on. This will help you identify a consumer’s needs, preferences, and behaviours at each CEP, and uncover where your brand’s current positioning and mental market share.

Develop targeted messaging

Now you know your consumers and CEPs, you should craft compelling messages that address their specific needs and pain points at each moment. You can also highlight how your brand fulfils these requirements better than your competition.

Leverage your distinctive brand assets

Use a Brand Asset study to identify and leverage the logos, taglines, colours, and other visual elements that make your brand recognisable and memorable. If you miss this step, you risk your product or service being recalled, but in conjunction with a competitor with a stronger brand.

Implement a targeted marketing strategy for each CEP

Use a mix of channels and tactics, such as social media advertising, email marketing, influencer partnerships, and other on and offline strategies to engage your target audience effectively. A Marketing Mix Model can help you identify the areas that will give you strongest sales activations and brand awareness.

Monitor and measure your CEP performance

Continuously monitor and measure the performance of your marketing efforts at each CEP. A Brand Tracker with Category Entry Point module allows you to track key metrics such as CEP linkage, awareness, consideration, and purchase intent, to allow you to make data-driven adjustments. By measuring continuously, you can remain agile and adaptive to changes in consumer behaviour, market trends, and competitive dynamics.

By following these steps, you can develop a robust CEPs-centric marketing plan that effectively engages consumers at key moments in their purchase journey, driving mental availability and purchase intent. If you would like some help getting started, why not get in touch?

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Karen Chandler

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With the world in constant flux, building a strong brand presence is essential for companies looking to grow. One crucial aspect of this is understanding and harnessing the power of Mental Availability. But what exactly is it, and why should brands focus on it in 2024?

What is Mental Availability?

Mental Availability refers to the extent to which a brand occupies space in consumers’ minds, influencing their purchasing decisions. It encompasses the strength of associations consumers have with the brand and how readily it comes to mind when they consider a product or service category. Unlike traditional brand tracking metrics, which often focus solely on current buyers, Mental Availability metrics also consider non-buyers and brand rejectors. This provides companies with insights into potential growth opportunities and barriers to purchase.

Why should brands care about Mental Availability?

Simply put, it’s about how easily a brand comes to mind in different purchase situations within a specific product or service category. Unlike physical availability, which focuses on accessibility and ease of purchase, Mental Availability emphasizes the brand’s presence in consumers’ minds during relevant purchase moments. It’s akin to being a familiar face in a crowded room.

In today’s competitive market, where consumers are bombarded with choices, being top-of-mind is crucial for brands. Tracking Mental Availability involves measuring metrics such as mental penetration, network size, mental market share, and share of mind. These metrics provide valuable insights into brand recall across different Category Entry Points (CEPs), helping brands understand their positioning and increase their likelihood of being considered by consumers in relevant purchase situations.

For instance, while many people may be aware of a brand like the National Lottery, not everyone immediately considers it for specific needs, such as buying a gift to put into a card. This specific need represents a Category Entry Point (CEP), a key measure of Mental Availability. Understanding these CEPs and measuring the brand’s share of them allows brands to gauge how likely people are to consider their brand compared to others in relevant purchase situations.

Strategies for success

Understanding Mental Availability is only the first step; brands must also take proactive steps to enhance it. Strategies for enhancing it include:

Messaging alignment
Ensuring that brand messaging aligns with the Category Entry Points (CEPs) identified through research. Messaging should resonate with consumers in specific purchase situations, increasing the likelihood of brand recall.

Differentiation
Standing out from competitors by leveraging distinctive brand assets (DBAs) that make the brand memorable and easily recognisable in consumers’ minds.

Targeted marketing efforts
Direct marketing efforts towards reaching consumers during relevant purchase moments. Utilising channels and tactics that resonate with consumers in specific contexts, will increase brand visibility and recall.

Continuous monitoring and adjustments
Regularly monitoring and analysing Mental Availability metrics to track progress and identify areas for improvement. Brands should adjust marketing strategies and messaging as needed to maintain and enhance Mental Availability over time.

In today’s competitive marketplace, understanding and enhancing Mental Availability is crucial for brand success. By focusing on strategies to increase brand recall and presence in consumers’ minds during relevant Category Entry Points, brands can strengthen their positioning and increase their likelihood of being considered by consumers. Through continuous monitoring and adjustment of marketing efforts, brands can stay top-of-mind and drive growth in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Nepa’s Mental Availability offer

Because we believe Mental Availability is so important, if you sign up to one of our Brand Tracking packages before the end of March 2024, we’ll boost your insights with our Category Entry Points module free of charge. Plus, we’ll throw in a complimentary data deep-dive meeting so you can really make the most of your investment (altogether worth 12,500 EUR)!* Find out more here.

* For Brand Tracking packages over 3,000 EUR / month for a minimum of 12 months, purchased before 01/04/24

Karen Chandler

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If your Brand Tracker does not measure Category Entry Points, then you’re missing a key area of growth for 2024. The best search engine is the mind, so triggering thoughts of your brand at key buying occasions can lead to significant additional revenue. Think Diet Coke and break time.

Sign up for one of our Brand Tracking packages before the 1st of April 2024 and get 12 months of Category Entry Points insights, alongside a complementary deep-dive into your results.

What do you get?

– A dynamic Brand Tracking dashboard with 24/7 access to all of your fundamental KPIs, such as ad awareness and brand strength

– A complementary insight meeting to delve into your 3 key business questions

– A consultative partnership that will help you answer the ‘so what’ and ‘what now’ for your brand

– Access to your new tracker within an average of 4-6 weeks

Why does your Brand Tracker need Category Entry Points?

The details

– Offer only open for new Brand Tracking packages over 32,000 SEK per month with a minimum 12 month contract, signed before the 1st April 2024.

– One free 1-hour insight meeting, to cover 3 key business questions.

– Category Entry Point module included for 12 months free of charge, for all markets and categories purchased (cost for year 2 based on 2 categories and 3 countries is 36,000 SEK, subject to change).

– Number of free Category Entry Points is capped at 10, and they must be the same for each market and category.

– Normal Nepa terms and conditions apply

Get in touch

Karen Chandler

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AI. New shopping channels. A cost-of-living crisis. The new spending power of Generation Alpha. Market share growth has never been as complicated as it is in 2024. But you can sharpen your competitive edge by building mental availability; ensuring your brand is at the top of mind wherever and whenever a consumer is ready to make a purchase.

This is where Category Entry Points come into play. As defined by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, they are the cues that consumers use to access their memory when making a buying decision, encompassing both internal cues like motives and emotions and external cues like location and time of day. Think Diet Coke with break time.

With a direct correlation between a brand’s market penetration and the number and strength of their Category Entry Points, understanding and leveraging them is essential.

How do you identify your Category Entry Points?

To begin, you need to start with the 7W’s; ‘Why’, ‘Where’, ‘hoW’, ‘With’, ‘When’, ‘While’, and ‘With what’.

– Why

The motive and benefits behind a purchase, for instance to lead a healthier lifestyle or to get a promotion.

– Where

The location of where the product will be used or consumed, for instance when working from home, or on the train.

– hoW

The feelings and emotions behind the purchase, for instance feeling low on energy or stressed.

– With/for whom

The other people who may be involved in the usage or consumption, for instance your partner, or senior management.

– When

The timing of when the product will be used or consumed, for instance every Saturday or at the end of the financial year.

– While

Co-activities that might occur with the usage or consumption, for instance a meeting or filling up your car.

– With what

Other categories that might be purchased or consumed at the same time, for instance socks with shoes or popcorn at the movies.

How do you then prioritise these Category Entry Points?

As consumers have a multitude of entry points into each category, product or brand, you then need to prioritise those that are the most effective for brand growth. This is where we turn to the 3C’s.

– Credible

How credible is your product, brand, or solution in this situation?

– Competitive

How many other brand or business are in competition for this entry point?

– Common

How frequently do buyers find themselves at this entry point?

Those with high credibility, low competition, and high incidence are those that are going to be most valuable. Having high impact, high effectiveness messaging at these points will help create brand memories.

Why should you then track these Category Entry Points continuously?

Identifying your Category Entry Points is only the first step. Once you actively start to build brand memories during these situations, you need to have a system in place to see which messages resonate, and which don’t. And it’s important not to forget that your competitors might also be working on their Category Entry Point memories too.

By measuring continuously, you can quickly and easily view your entire competitive landscape. This makes it simpler to promptly adapt strategies and stay ahead of your competition.

Nepa’s three step approach

1. Discover your brand’s specific Category Entry Points

Using qualitative techniques, we uncover every Category Entry point that might lead a consumer to your category. Generative AI is used to identify, validate, and analyse the data to minimise the risks of bias.

2. Quantify and prioritise your key Category Entry Points

A quantitative deep dive identifies the strength of your brand’s current Category Entry Points, and which ones should be focused on to drive growth in the market.

3. Monitor the development of your Category Entry Points

Both your brand and your competitors Category Entry Points are continuously tracked in our Brand Tracking dashboard, so you can make timely, informed decisions to grow your market share.

Karen Chandler

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Observation, sender recall, message comprehension, and liking are some of the key metrics collected by regular Campaign Evaluations. Did your consumer see your campaign? Did they know it was your brand? Did they understand the message you were trying to convey, and did it make them more likely to buy your brand?

CampaignPulse asks all of these questions, and then delves even deeper. What in particular resonates with consumers? How unique do they think your brand is? How does it compare with industry benchmarks? Does the ad align with consumer’s expectations of your brand? These are the factors that truly drive engagement and loyalty.

The best part of a CampaignPulse evaluation? You can receive your insights whilst your campaign is running. These near-time results provide a distinct advantage in today’s fast-paced marketing landscape. If your campaign isn’t performing well and you only find out after the fact, the damage is already done. This flexibility is a game-changer, allowing you to respond agilely to consumer feedback, emerging trends, and the ever-evolving consumer landscape.

The pitfalls of a poorly executed campaign

If done incorrectly, your campaign may inadvertently be a boost for your competition. A lack of strong brand assets, such as tagline, colour palette, audio, and typography, can mean that the time and resources you’ve spent simply go to waste.

CampaignPulse helps you to minimise this risk by giving you a clear overview of which brand assets drive recognition and liking, which may inadvertently boost competitors, and how to mitigate this to create the strongest campaign.

Campaign Evaluations v. CamapignPulse

Karen Chandler

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Survey-led brand tracking is a constant trade-off between accuracy and cost. The larger the sample size, the more reliable the insights, but invariably the larger the budget required. Nepa’s AI Trend Boost is your solution.

This revolutionary machine-learning based approach takes historical tracking data, analyses context and covariance between key variables, and then creates a model with the same accuracy as a sample with five times the data. It also reduces sampling variances by up to 75%, bringing you closer than ever to your consumer.

– Offers a 5 times increase in the depth and granularity of your data

– Enhances low incidence target groups to create meaningful business insights

– Produces insights with the smoothness of a moving average, combined with the responsiveness of near-time data

How does AI Trend Boost Work?

If you have a small sample, unboosted raw data in your brand tracker can have notable weekly shifts. How do you make confident business decisions when you can’t tell what’s a concrete trend, and what is simply noise?

AI Trend Boost uses a proprietary algorithm to analyse several key data variables and past-time series data to generate an accurate model for your brand’s KPIs. It learns and improves over time – the more data it is given, the more refined its predictions become, making it an invaluable tool to optimise your brand’s performance and stay ahead of trends.

In almost all simulated cases, the output of a tracker with AI Trend Boost applied is far superior to a simple moving average in terms of real-life population trend accuracy, including in those with decreased sample sizes. Error metrics are reduced by up to 75%.

Plus, AI Trend Boost is easy to integrate into our core Brand Trackers, letting you effectively enhance your insights with a single click.

Industry recognition for AI Trend Boost

AI Trend Boost’s Brand Noise Reduction methodology has been recognised by industry experts as cutting-edge technology, and it is trusted by the biggest global brands including IKEA.

“Applying Nepa’s Brand Noise Reduction algorithm to Marketing Mix Modelling really gives us peace of mind that we’re making decisions based on the best data possible.”

Brinda Matthew, Head of Brand Marketing Performance, IKEA Canada

Watch more: Nepa x IKEA Canada | Digital Fallout: How IKEA is measuring brand effects in the post-dinosaur era

Karen Chandler

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If, after all of our posts, you’re interested in reading the full paper behind our ESOMAR Congress 2023 presentation ‘The New Marketing Renaissance’, you can find it below.

‘The New Marketing Renaissance: The merging of creative work and scientific evaluation of communicat ion‘ was co-authored by Karin Haglund, Cajsa Wirén, Oliver Engist, Hugo Englund, and Thomas Berthelsen. It looks into how new techniques can be applied to Marketing Mix Modeling to specifically measure creative quality, thereby providing insights on how this quality relates directly back to market effectiveness. If you have any questions, do please get in touch.

Karen Chandler

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ESOMAR Congress is over for another year, and what a Congress it was for Nepa. Artificial Intelligence was the buzz word of the week, with sessions on topics such as using predictive analytics and natural language processing to revolutionise your marketing strategy and unlocking travel’s new frontier with AI-powered dream destination bookings. And we were also there to talk AI!

The Young ESOMAR Society (YES) Awards

Nepa Data Scientist Valere Demelier was chosen as one of the nine brightest young research minds to present at this year’s conference. A 60-second pitch was voted on by conference attendees, and the three with the most votes were invited back the next day to showcase their full presentation.

Valere’s topic was the one on everyone’s lips at the event – Artificial Intelligence. He showcased a project he worked on with a large global retailer who wanted to learn more about what their key personas searched for online.

AI and machine learning were used to cluster millions of search terms into specific segments, identifying which topics each digital consumer profile was interested in. Not only did machine learning speed up the analysis, but using GPT technology made the reporting more accurate.

Valere won silver for his presentation.

“This year I was invited to ESOMAR Congress 2023 as a YES awards finalist, where I was delighted to have won the silver award. The congress was an incredible experience filled with inspiring presentations, innovative research projects, and new friends.

Amongst the many incredible papers presented one of my favourites was the brilliant “Uncovering the Human Voice for Deep Insights”. This presentation elegantly explored how consumers build relationships with brands they interact and over time develop “Brand Love”. The integration of market research and psychology concepts as well as advanced language modelling techniques created a compelling story rooted in sound research methods and powerful conclusions and real-world implications.”, said Valere.

The New Marketing Renaissance

Nepa‘s R&D Manager Cajsa Wirén joined forces with Klarna Bank‘s Global Consumer Insights Manger to present their talk on how to merge the creative with the technical.

There are high demands on marketers today. They need to produce content of such high quality that people actively want to consume it, whilst understanding the technicalities of tailoring content to the multitude of different channels. They also simultaneously need to not get lost in all the choices, and overlook the fundamentals for a successful campaign, be it objectives, measurement KPIs or execution: a true DaVincian feat!

The talk covered how new techniques can be applied to Marketing Mix Modeling to specifically measure creative quality, thereby providing insights on how this quality relates directly back to market effectiveness.

The full paper can be found here.

Dynata RISE Awards 2023

Nepa won the Market Research Agency category (EMEA) in Dynata’s 2023 RISE awards. Nepa’s Chief Product Officer Robert Beatus collected the trophy that assessed Dynata’s best-performing clients, with a focus on respondent engagement.
Read more about this award here.

Nepa’s Interim CEO Ferry Wolswinkel commented: “This was my first year at ESOMAR Congress, and what a first year it was. I was immensely proud to see Nepa’s Data Scientist Valere earn a well-deserved silver medal at the YES Awards, and receiving Dynata’s RISE award is truly a testament of the hard work put into our surveys by our teams globally.

I would also like to thank Klarna’s Karin Haglund for joining R&D Manager Cajsa Wiren on the Supercharger stage to present ‘The New Marketing Renaissance’. Such an inspiring session by both”.

Karen Chandler

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And our ESOMAR Congress continues to get better! Not only have two Nepians been chosen to impart some of their market research wisdom during the conference, but we’ve only gone and received an award! We are proud to announce that we won the Market Research Agency category (EMEA) in Dynata’s 2023 RISE awards.

The RISE “Recognising Innovation in Survey Engagement” awards are all about publicly recognising Dynata’s best-performing clients, with a focus on respondent engagement. Dynata has assessed all of their clients’ surveys over the last 12 months against 3 areas of respondent impact (efficiency, engagement, and trust) against 8 different variables, such as conversion rate, abandon rate, and survey length. Once analysed, the data was ranked and the top companies identified.

So what does this mean for Nepa? This means that clients can be assured that the insights collected are based on the best possible data, ensured by best-in-class respondent engagement. Winning this award is not just a testament to our dedication and expertise, but also a reflection of the value we place on research design, panellist engagement and operational best practices.

“Surveys are at the core of great research. This award reaffirms our commitment to maintaining the highest standards of data quality, ensuring that every insight we deliver is built on a foundation of trust.

I would like to say a massive thank you to our internal expert and client teams for making this award possible. From research and design to scripting and operations, their work is the foundation of every successful project.“
Ferry Wolswinkel, Interim CEO

Karen Chandler

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It’s less than a month to this year’s ESOMAR Congress in Amsterdam, and we’re delighted to let you know you’ll have (possibly!) more than two chances to watch a Nepian in action.

Monday 11th September, 09.25

The Supercharger Stage

Nepa UK’s Data Scientist Valere Demelier is one of the finalists of the YES Awards, and during this 60-second elevator pitch will discuss AI for Consumer Digital Profiles. He will (very quickly!) take us through a recent project that utilised open AI’s embedding tool to distil shopper search queries into an embedded data frame, which was then subjected to unsupervised machine learning clustering to identify patterns among shoppers.

Tuesday 12th September, 14.30

The Supercharger Stage

Nepa Sweden’s R&D Manager Cajsa Wirén will be presenting ‘The New Marketing Renaissance; The merging of creative work and scientific evaluation of communication’ alongside Klarna’s Global Consumer Insights Manager Karin Haglund.

This 20-minute session will cover how marketing mix modelling can be combined with survey-based measurements of campaign content, to quantify the value of creatives. This case study will provide insights on how different aspects of creative executions impact marketing effectiveness, and highlights how clear branding in campaigns is the most important challenge for brands to crack.

Tuesday 12th September, 16.20

The Supercharger Stage

If Valere’s pitch wows the ESOMAR delegates, then alongside two other finalists he will be showcasing his full pitch mainstage Pecha Kucha style for 6min40 in front of senior business leaders. Event attendees have the final word, so if you’re there in person please vote!

Alongside Valere and Cajsa, CEO Ferry Wolswinkel, Account Director Andrea Goeres, Senior Account Manager Malin Larsudd, and Marketing Manager Karen Chandler will be attending to explore the latest trends, innovations, and insights in the field of market research. All are more than happy to meet up over a coffee, just get in touch!

About ESOMAR Congress

ESOMAR Congress is ESOMAR’s flagship event that serves as a prominent platform for industry professionals, researchers, and experts to converge and learn. The event showcases a diverse array of sessions, including keynote presentations, panel discussions, workshops, and interactive sessions led by thought leaders and pioneers in the industry.

Blog Posts

Nepa’s guide to building a Category Entry Point (CEP)-centric marketing strategy

Karen Chandler

Building a CEP-centric marketing plan

Define your CEPs

Quantify and prioritise the key CEPs

Develop targeted messaging

Leverage your distinctive brand assets

Implement a targeted marketing strategy for each CEP

Monitor and measure your CEP performance

Blog Posts

Mental Availability: A key secret to brand growth

Karen Chandler

What is Mental Availability?

Why should brands care about Mental Availability?

Strategies for success

Nepa’s Mental Availability offer

Blog Posts

Memories generate sales: Why your Brand Tracker needs to include Category Entry Points

Karen Chandler

What do you get?

Why does your Brand Tracker need Category Entry Points?

The details

Get in touch

Blog Posts

What are Category Entry Points, and why should you care about them in 2024?

Karen Chandler

How do you identify your Category Entry Points?

How do you then prioritise these Category Entry Points?

Why should you then track these Category Entry Points continuously?

Nepa’s three step approach

Blog Posts

Unleash the power of CampaignPulse: Quick evaluations without compromising on quality

Karen Chandler

The pitfalls of a poorly executed campaign

Campaign Evaluations v. CamapignPulse

Blog Posts

Introducing AI Trend Boost by Nepa: Make your brand tracking data go further

Karen Chandler

How does AI Trend Boost Work?

Industry recognition for AI Trend Boost

Blog Posts

ESOMAR Congress 2023 Paper

Karen Chandler

Blog Posts

Nepa in Amsterdam | ESOMAR Congress 2023

Karen Chandler

The Young ESOMAR Society (YES) Awards

The New Marketing Renaissance

Dynata RISE Awards 2023

Blog Posts

2023 RISE Award Winner: Nepa

Karen Chandler

Blog Posts

Nepa at ESOMAR Congress 2023

Karen Chandler

Monday 11th September, 09.25

Tuesday 12th September, 14.30

Tuesday 12th September, 16.20

About ESOMAR Congress