What is Mental Availability and why does it matter?

How this small change led to 27:1 ROI and sold so many tickets, we had to pull the campaign.

Using Mental Availability to find growth

When I was in The National Lottery in Ireland, we had huge market penetration and very high buying frequency. Like many FMCG brands, we had a mix of heavy, and light buyers.

But there were growth opportunities. There were buying situations where we could win more. Gifting was one. Our research showed that we turn up for certain type of gifts. Specifically, when people have already decided to get a card, they think "What would be nice gift to put into the card?”

That's a Category Entry Point. A CEP.

What are Category Entry Points?

Category Entry Points are the specific cues that trigger people to think about your category - and hopefully your brand. Not the broad category. They are more precise. More directional. Which is why I like them.

The wonderful professors in the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute are the folks behind this the concept of Mental Availability, measured by Category Entry Points. We worked with RedC, a top research agency to identify our CEPs and focus our marketing efforts to grow these. For example:

• Why do they buy? (To treat someone)

• When do they buy? (Once they've decided to get a card)

• Where are they? (Often a local shop or petrol station)

• While doing what? (Often when doing general shopping)

• With/for whom? (For a friend or family member)

• With what other products? (Along with a card)

• hoW feeling? (Hurried but wants to get something thoughtful)

At the time, 52% of adults would think about a lottery product for a gift in a card. That’s a decent number but we’re a big brand and half our audience didn’t think of us. This was an opportunity.

"Gift to put in a card" was a useful CEP. Specific enough to win. But broad enough to generate decent sales.

The advertising before we focused on this CEP

In Ireland every year, The National Lottery run a raffle known as the Millionaire Raffle. A guaranteed Millionaire on New Year’s Day. While it was very popular, we hadn’t sold all our tickets for a number of years.

Below is the original ad from many years ago. It’s funny, typical Lottery, everyday charm, good acting. It was made before I joined, but I rate it. I like it.

But you’ll notice it is not about gifting.

This was an awareness play. It’s good but not linked to the gifting CEP we uncovered in our research.

Later there was this campaign. Again, very much in the style of Lottery, and before my time - but not explicit about gifting.

So in 2020 we made a new campaign

In this campaign, the entire concept and every frame links the brand to the gifting occasion. This is the TV ad, but the entire campaign doubled-down on this. Full credit to the wonderful

Damien O’Donnell

who is the most talented film director I know. He even manages to get “tickets are limited” into the script without it feeling forced.

The results?

The results were both immediate and long lasting. For the first year in many, we sold out all tickets. So much so, we had to pull the advertising. It wasn’t a fluke, as it continued to sell out every year.

The campaign also won a bunch of effectiveness awards. When I left, my only parting advice was not to change this campaign until there’s evidence it is no longer working.

It is still running.

More on Mental Availability

I really like Mental Availability as a measure. It is directional for teams. You can review briefs and all the marketing communication plans (including media) against it. This was just one CEP, but the thinking is the more CEPs you win, the better your chances of the getting the sale.

There are three main measures - what percentage of category buyers link your brand to at least one buying situation (Mental Penetration), the average number of situations your brand connects to among people who know you (Network Size), and your share of all brand-situation connections across the category (Mental Market Share).

The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute have a bunch of great books on this. This one by Professor Romaniuk is gold, if you want to go deep.