Byron Sharp’s well proven law of growth, that both brands and categories grow primarily as a result of penetration gains and not as much via frequency or AWP as previously understood, sits as a mantra at the heart of the marketing functions of many leading CPG companies.

Sharp demonstrates that brands and categories should anticipate losing buyers across a year – and only those that can compensate for these losses with a greater number of new or lapsed buyers are the ones who grow their brands and categories.

The two big questions are, ‘how do we do this’ and ‘who do we target’?

At Quantic, we believe that the answers to these questions are a critical part of the differentiated and successful deployment of a client’s category strategy, so we are working alongside Barry Lemmon’s First Purchase Research and shopper research specialists, Green Shoots, to take cutting edge research through to pragmatic implementation.

Between us, we are looking to change the way shopper research is conducted and then proactively used.  Why?  Because the majority of today’s research is based on a generic shopper and not those we believe are vital to the challenge of building penetration.  It stands to reason that when looking at the laws of growth, there are two main shopper types; those who are already a consistent part of your penetration base and then new shoppers – the ones you need to attract to your category or brand in order to restore and grow penetration levels.

Key to our joint approach is the Purchase Outcomes™ framework that has been developed by First Purchase Research.  Purchase Outcomes™ are identified by considering each purchase in the context of the shopper’s previous purchasing behaviour.  At the heart of the framework is the understanding that ‘First Purchases’, those occasions when a shopper changes behaviour and buys a brand or product for the first time, are not only essential for growth, but are also different in terms of shopper behaviour and purchase influences.  So, understanding the motivations for first purchase and then targeting purchase type is far more sensible than trying to use less than helpful shopper typologies.

At Quantic, we use Purchase Outcomes™ to embed Sharp’s laws of growth into our approach to shopper and to target the purchases that drive penetration growth.

Want to understand more?  Please feel free to connect with us.