PERSPECTIVE
How To Use Share Of Voice
(SOV) To Predict, Drive Or
Impact A Brand’s Top Of
Mind Awareness (TOMA) – A
Nigerian Perspective
By Josiah Kimanzi
S
OV = Share of Voice; TOMA = Top
of Mind Awareness. So what is the
correlation between these two levers
and how can SOV be used to drive, predict
or impact TOMA in a Nigerian context?
Awareness is usually the main building
block to a relationship between consumers
and a brand. This would start from
unawareness of the brand and reach the
top level of brand awareness, commonly
known as TOMA. Various brands use
different philosphies but the end game
being the same to define the relationship
along the consumer journey.
From unaware, the next step is knowing
about the brand although they are yet
to interact with it. Let’s use the current
Nigerian lager beer scenario. Two new
brands, Budweiser and Tiger, have been
launched in the market.
If you asked most consumers (except those
who attended the respective launch events
at the Landmark or Muri Okunola Park
in Victoria Island, Lagos), they are largely
unaware of the existence of these brands.
Now the challenge is how does the brand
manager of either one of these brands
push their awareness levels from unaware
to the TOMA level?
So let’s call stage 1 completely unaware of
the brand. That means that a lot of effort
and spend on media both Above The Line
(ATL) and Below The Line (BTL) will be
required to drive brand recognition and
presence. However, the communication
must be breakthrough, engaging and
translate into eventual trial and repertoire.
An example would be the current Airtel
Ad, which (in my own opinion), took an
interesting twist from a scene in the epic
Wedding Party movie and leveraged on
it to make a memorable ad that connects
self image and an extended expression of
the ladies involved in a comical way. The
reason the ad resonates well with Nigerian
Stage 2 would be interesting, where the con-
sumers are now aware of of the brand but they
are yet to use it. This is also dependent on the
category and how much the brands are activated
at the ATL and BTL levels to drive usage. This is
where sampling is a good initiative to drive tri-
al and trigger repeat purchase. Star Radler was
able to do this effectively at Ikeja City Mall.
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consumers is a reflection of the competing
“Owambe” scenes where both in-laws
showcase their prowess. However, that
does not mean that Airtel gained share in
data usage, although the current consumer
confusion with Etisalat and 9 Mobile
could sway some users. That’s a story for
another day.
So back to our journey. Stage 2 would be
interesting, where the consumers are now
aware of of the brand but they are yet
to use it. This is also dependent on the
category and how much the brands are
activated at the ATL and BTL levels to
drive usage. This is where sampling is a
good initiative to drive trial and trigger
repeat purchase. Star Radler was able to
do this effectively at Ikeja City Mall.
This would also depend on other market
factors such as distribution, trade margins
and consumer desire. Case in point was La
Casera which was very good with using the
trade partners (especially in Lagos traffic)
to drive volumes. However, the brand
has lost ground recently, ceding share as
Coca-Cola Nigeria Limited (CCNL)
pushed their Fanta Apple variant more
aggresively using the same price point.
They knew which distributors to speak to
and influence their brand presence while
closely matching the taste profiles for La
Casera and Fanta Apple that consumers
could hardly tell the difference.
Stage 3 would be where consumers know
about the brand and they have now tried
it. In classic research terms, this is where