In one line
Share of voice is your share of all the advertising in a category, usually measured in media spend. Excess share of voice (ESOV) is share of voice minus share of market: positive ESOV tends to grow share, negative ESOV to shrink it.
What it does
- Share of voice = your brand's media spend ÷ all brands' media spend in the category, over the same period. Some teams count impressions or ratings instead of money.
- ESOV = share of voice − share of market, in points. A brand with 15% of the market and 25% of the voice has +10 points of ESOV.
- John Philip Jones (1990) showed that brands' share of voice tracks their share of market. Across IPA cases, Binet and Field (2013) found share grows by about half a point a year for every 10 points of ESOV, on average.
- In Countermove, memory follows each brand's share of brand media, carried over from quarter to quarter and adjusted for creative quality, so share tends towards share of voice. A strong ad makes each euro count for more: that is effective share of voice.
Business and brand
Impact on the businessP&L, cash, share price
- ESOV costs money now and earns share over years, so judge it over two or three years, not one.
- Holding share needs a share of voice close to your share of market; growing needs more.
- Rivals can see your spend and answer it, which cancels your excess. In the game they do; in the lab they hold their plans.
Impact on the brandMemory, loyalty, pricing power
- Voice builds memory, the mental availability shoppers act on (lesson 3).
- A weak ad turns the same spend into less effective voice (lesson 13).
- Going dark loses share slowly and steadily: memory fades over years, not weeks.
Try it
Set your share of voice
Hold Brightwater's brand media at a multiple of its plan for three years while the rivals keep theirs. See its share of voice, its ESOV and where its value share goes.
Value share and ESOV by quarter over three years. ESOV moves with the rivals' ads as well as yours: as their campaigns wear out or are replaced, the effect of each euro shifts. Rivals hold their budgets and never answer.
Notice: At 2× the plan, ESOV averages +12.2 pts over 3 years, and value share ends ▲ 2.4 pts against holding the plan, with €4.1m more profit after media. Voice above its size grows share, slowly.
Runs Countermove's market engine: the reference soft-drinks market, three brands, rivals holding their plans so only your change moves the result.
Sources
- Jones (1990), Harvard Business Review: ad spending, maintaining market share
- Binet & Field (2013), The Long and the Short of It, IPA
- Romaniuk & Sharp (2016), How Brands Grow Part 2, Oxford University Press