Interpretation of brand penetration figures that are reported by sub-groups

Abstract

His research interests are market structure analysis and pricing. John conducts research for many leading companies in Australasia, including Goodman Fielder, Orlando-Wyndham and Insurance Australia Group.

What Can the Brand Manager Expect from Facebook?

“…Brand penetration measures the size of a brand's customer base, defined as the proportion of people buying from the category that purchase the brand at least once in the time period (Dawes, 2006). Empirical studies consistently find that brands, irrespective of their sizes, follow a negative binomial distribution of purchase frequency, with many light buyers and very few heavy ones (Ehrenberg, 1959; Goodhardt et al, 1984).…”

Brand Loyalty in the UK Sportswear Market

“…For example, does brand X have more market share, or less market share in demographic group Y than it does in demographic group Z, or indeed in the wider population? This analysis method has the advantage of controlling for the fact that the demographic groups may have differing propensities to purchase the product category (Dawes 2006). The default expectation is that any brand should perform about as well in any particular demographic group as it does in the overall buyer population.…”

Regularities in buyer behaviour and brand performance: The case of Australian beer

“…47 -50 Likewise, in a recent study variations in brand performance across demographic groups were overwhelmingly attributable to overall brand size -with brand segmentation a noticeable but not large effect. 51 What is the explanation for this lack of difference among brand users? At least part of the answer is that if the buyers of one brand also buy other brands, then the users of each cannot be too different because they are often the same people !…”