Abstract:

This paper is based on retail store audits covering the consumer sales movement of 101 established brands of food, household and toiletry products over a seven to ten year period ending 1970-1972. Consumer sales are expressed as a share of market for each brand in relation to its major primary competition and contrasted with share of marketing effort. When a brand's share of advertising for a given year is compared with the previous year's share of market, the paper shows that there is a rather consistent trend relationship between changes in this independent variable and changes in share of market between the two years in question. This generally takes the form of a linear relationship as expressed by the equation. This equation represents what might be termed a Marketing Advertising Pattern or MAP for the brand. The paper concludes with the observation that the maintenance and/or expansion of an established brand's consumer franchise depends on keeping the product up-to-date and in line with consumer wants and needs.