Physical availability: make your brand easy to find and buy

Definition physical availability

Physical availability refers to how easy it is for category buyers to find and buy your brand, and this availability is a product of Presence, Prominence and Relevance. - How Brands Grow

Can potential customers easily find and buy your brand if they want to? That's physical availability. (Re)knowing and thinking about your brand in a buying situation is called mental availability. Together, they are the foundation of brand growth.

We use the English term because there is no good Dutch translation available.

Physical availability. Heineken's secret.

Heineken is a globally known and even famous brand. How did that come about? Sure, Heineken has run some sublime advertising campaigns over the years. For example, "Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach" by the British advertising agency BBH in the 1970s. That campaign was even rejected but the agency managed to convince Heineken to go ahead with it anyway, with enormous success.

But the reason Heineken has become so big worldwide is actually due to one activity in particular that Alfred Heineken personally stressed: distribution. Make sure you are on the shelves and available at the on-trade, where and when your customer (can) think of you. Of course, other things like quality and price also play a big role, but the focus was and is on physical availability.

Now it's not so easy for SMBs to get a global distribution network like Heineken off the ground. Still, it is important even for smaller companies to know what physical availability means if they want to grow.

Presence, Prominence and Relevance

Physical availability consists of 3 pillars: Presence, Prominence, and Relevance.

• Presence is being present for buyers in various buying situations (for beer: in the supermarket and in the on-trade. In other words, is your brand where it needs to be).
• Prominence, then, is how striking you are to buyers in those situations, compared to competitors (in beer: does your can or bottle stand out on the shelves because of an eye-catching design, for example).
• Relevance refers to the context and presence in the relevant buying situations (for beer: at a wedding party, Friday afternoon drink or on a sunny day on the terrace, not in a hotel at the breakfast buffet).

In summary, if a company wants to grow, it's not so much about being distinctive. It's about being readily available in situations where potential customers would want it.

Increase physical availability

If it's so essential to growing a brand then of course you want to know how to increase physical availability of a brand. These are the knobs that even SME entrepreneurs can turn:

Presence

• Be present where potential customers are searching for your product or service. Such a process often starts in Google.
• Expand to new locations: the Internet has made it easier to open a store in Germany, for example, and serve the entire German market.

Prominence

• Make sure you stand out (high CTRs, original photography and designs).
• Be sure to repeat your message, through remarketing, for example.

Relevance

• Be visible when potential customers search informatively (I have problem x, y, z). Often influenced by SEO.
• Be visible when potential customers search transactional (I want a service provider for x, y, z). Often influenced by SEA.

We close with a tweet from Byron Sharp himself.

Search advertising (which is huge chunk of what is called "digital") isn't like advertising at all. It's physical availability.

- Byron Sharp (@ProfByron) April 3, 2018