COULD THIS BE ONE OF THE MORE POWERFUL WAYS TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS?

NEW PURCHASE OCCASIONS

Consider when you might visit a Starbucks: networking, morning wake-up, afternoon pick-me-up, coffee with a friend, business meeting. They’re purchase occasions, moments in a customer’s life that create relevancy and urgency to a product purchase.  Associating your brand with purchase occasions can create powerful, instinctive buying triggers for your brand. These triggers can be internal, such as motivations  or emotions, or external, like location, time of day, or season.

Professors Byron Sharp and Jenni Romaniuk, in their book "How Brands Grow, Part 2," argue that linking your brand to specific purchase occasions, termed "category entry points," is one of the most effective strategies for brand growth. It makes your product more "mentally available" to the customer when they're making a purchase decision. Recent research suggests that associating your brand with a specific category entry point not only triggers purchases but also establishes a natural "monopoly" for your brand. At The Picture People, connecting our brand to new gift-giving occasions doubled our visit frequency from 1.1 times per year to 2.3 times per year.

EXAMPLES

• High performance -- Red Bull

• Fall – Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Lattes

• French Fries and Heinz Catsup

• First Trip Without the Kids -- Airbnb

• Feeling Hangry -- Snickers

HOW TO APPLY

• Conduct research to identify current and potential purchase occasions that align with your brand. Hire a market research professional because you’ll want to know more than when and why, and the accuracy of your findings can vary based on survey design.

• Prioritize your occasions.

• Evaluate how your product and packaging will need to adapt for this occasion.

• Ensure that your messaging clearly ties your brand to the occasion

• Conduct small scale tests to validate your decision.

BONUS TIPS

• If you're a small or mid-sized brand, don’t take on every purchase occasion to start. Capitalize on a small list where you have a unique advantage.  

• Snickers is the best-selling candy bar in the world. The more you can “own” the purchase occasion, the more successful you will be.