Prof. Byron Sharp wrote a blog post titled Mental availability is not awareness, brand salience is not awareness.
« A brand’s mental availability refers to the probability that a buyer will notice, recognize and/or think of a brand in buying situations. It depends on the quality and quantity of memory structures related to the brand. »
« So this is much more than awareness… »
« A brand’s availability varies across situations, so higher mental availability means being easily noticed and/or thought of in many different buying situations… »
« And this means that advertising to refresh and build mental availability requires more than merely reminding consumers that the brand exists… »
Sharp’s response to a commenter:
« Mental availability is the probability of the brand to be noticed, recognised and/or recalled in buying situations. Awareness metrics tap various bits of this (eg recall or recognition) but seldom cover the differences of different situations. Saliency usually refers to a specific situation (eg popcorn at the movies) or temporarily heightened mental availability (eg after ad exposure). »
Byron Sharp is the author of How Brands Grow.
