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Understanding how consumers think about your category as a whole is crucial to brand growth. If you don’t understand what brings consumers to shop in your category, there's a slim chance they’ll be shopping for your brand.
In this article, we explore Category Entry Points, why they're crucial for brand growth, and how to generate your own list of entry points using quantilope's CEP Generator.
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What are Category Entry Points?
Category Entry Points (CEPs) are the wants, needs, and occasions that bring consumers to go out and shop for a product/service in a particular category. They represent the "why" behind a purchase, encompassing everything from a functional need ("I'm hungry") to an emotional desire ("I want to feel pampered").
So where do CEPs come from? CEPs are a foundational component of any Better Brand Health Tracking (BBHT) study. BBHT is an approach published by Professor Jenni Romaniuk of the Ehrenberg Bass Institute for Marketing Science. The approach goes well beyond traditional brand funnel tracking studies to really uncover how and why consumers are thinking about your category and your brand. Knowing the unparalleled value BBHT studies provide for brands, quantilope has automated the approach on our end-to-end Consumer Intelligence Platform using pre-built templates, AI survey input support, and automated reporting capabilities. As an additional layer of automation, we’ve now extended quantilope’s BBHT approach beyond the platform itself with a freely-available CEP Generator on our website, providing brands with immediate, customized category insights to inspire their strategy.
Anyone can access the CEP Generator, fill out a brief form about their brand and category, and receive an emailed PDF with a list of 35 CEPs that serve as a strategic starting point for their future BBHT initiatives. Before diving into how quantilope’s CEP Generator works, first we’ll explore how CEPs relate to brand growth (aka, why brands should care about them).
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Why do Category Entry Points matter for brand growth?
When brands understand their CEPs, they can effectively build relevant messaging into their marketing campaigns, product packaging, or service offers - ensuring they come to consumers' minds in the moments that matter most (when consumers are actively shopping for the brand’s category). Alternatively, without a clear grasp of CEPs, brands risk misallocating marketing resources, developing irrelevant product features, and ultimately missing out on significant growth opportunities.
The strategic alignment between CEPs and brand initiatives drives brand growth by expanding the number of situations in which consumers naturally think of your brand. For example, a potato chip brand may learn that a top CEP is ‘while watching football’ – so they look into partnerships with popular NFL players for a new commercial. Or, maybe a skincare brand learns that a key CEP is ‘for my morning routine’ so they work on innovating a face cream specifically for the morning, incorporating elements like SPF and a thinner consistency to layer under following skincare steps.
By identifying relevant CEPs like the example above, brands gain invaluable insights into:
- Consumer motivations: What truly drives people to engage with products or services in your industry?
- Mental Availability: How often and in what situations do consumers think of your brand compared to competitors?
- Growth opportunities: Are there underserved CEPs where your brand could expand its presence or introduce new offerings?
- Marketing effectiveness: Are your marketing messages aligning with the actual triggers that prompt consumer consideration?
Traditional funnel tracking provides brands with helpful metrics around brand awareness, consideration, and usage, but BBHT's use of CEPs unlock the actual catalysts of brand growth: understanding which purchase triggers your brand “owns” within the category, which ones competitors dominate, and which untapped entry points represent the biggest opportunities. This transforms vague business goals like "increase consideration" into concrete actions like "become the brand known for helping with an afternoon energy slump" or "become the go-to brand for celebrating small wins with a treat”.
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quantilope's CEP Generator
Knowing the undeniable impact CEPs and BBHT have on a brand’s growth and success, we knew we couldn’t let any brands miss out. That’s why we built our CEP Generator – a powerful, yet accessible, tool that serves as a great starting point for any brand looking to deepen its understanding of consumer behavior.
How quantilope’s CEP Generator works:
- Simple & free access: Visit quantilope’s website to fill out a brief form.
- Tailored insights: Within the form, add information about your specific category or industry.
- Instant results: quantilope’s use of AI leverages marketing science and research expertise to generate a list of 35 initial CEPs; these are specific to your category based on your input form.
- Delivered directly to your inbox: You'll receive a detailed PDF report of your custom CEPs directly in your email inbox.
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From CEPs to lasting brand growth
At quantilope, we believe (and have seen first-hand) that informed decisions lead to stronger brands. In leveraging CEPs in a BBHT approach, brands can uncover category opportunities, expand their product offerings, attract new customers, and monitor brand health against key Mental Availability and Mental Advantage metrics over time.
Users who receive their list of 35 uniquely-generated CEPs should consider it a diversified starting point for future BBHT studies. Should they choose to move forward and leverage these CEPs in a quantilope tracker, they’ll work with a dedicated team of quantilope research consultants to iterate and refine this list to about 20 final CEPs in order to optimize both survey experience and strategic relevance; this process might include adding, removing, or rephrasing/editing CEPs from their original PDF list.
quantilope's CEP Generator is more than just another AI tool; it's a gateway to deeper consumer understanding and a catalyst for sustainable brand growth.
Get in touch below to start unlocking the power of Category Entry Points for your brand!
