In short: category entry points (CEPs) are all the thoughts, needs and moments that lead a person to consider a purchase, for example «something quick to drink after the gym» or «software to invoice without an accountant». Developed by Jenni Romaniuk and Byron Sharp at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, they are the building blocks of mental availability (Ehrenberg-Bass, Romaniuk). The more your brand is linked to a category's relevant CEPs, the more likely it comes to mind when that moment arrives. The marketer's job is to discover the most common CEPs and build the association between the brand and as many of them as possible.
What are category entry points?
A category entry point is the mental door through which a person enters a category: the situation, need or occasion that triggers the thought «I could use something like...». They are cues tied to real contexts, a time of day, a place, a mood, some company, a goal, rather than technical product attributes.
As the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute explains, CEPs are the fundamental components of mental availability, which thereby stops being an abstraction and becomes something you build one piece at a time. The more cues activate your brand, the wider its share of mind in the category. We think it is the most useful concept Ehrenberg-Bass has handed to people doing marketing on the ground, because it finally makes operational an otherwise vague goal like «raise awareness».
Why do CEPs matter more than classic positioning?
Traditional positioning tries to own an attribute, the safest, the cheapest, in the mind of a narrow segment. The CEP approach flips the perspective: instead of owning an adjective for a few, the goal is to be recalled in as many buying situations as possible across the whole category.
This connects to the logic of the 95-5 rule: since at any moment most people are not in market, the brand has to be already associated with the right CEPs before the need arrives. When the moment fires, when the door opens, the brand already linked to that door in memory gets chosen. It is worth noting, in passing, that the idea is not entirely new: the old occasion-based marketing of the 1980s said something similar, but without the measurement rigour Romaniuk added decades later.
How do you map CEPs?
Romaniuk suggests discovering CEPs by investigating buying and consumption circumstances through a set of questions. The main dimensions are collected in the table.
Source: Jenni Romaniuk, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute.
The operating method is to gather CEPs with qualitative and quantitative research, then rank them on two criteria, how widespread they are (how many people live them) and how strongly your brand is already linked to them. The intersection of the two says where to concentrate communication.
Which CEPs should you own first?
Not all CEPs are worth the same. Priority goes to the large entry points, lived by many, where the brand is still weak, because that is where the greatest room for growth sits. Owning a CEP you already dominate adds little, owning a niche one reaches few.
In practice it pays to communicate the situations, not just the product, because showing the brand inside the moment of use builds the memory association better than a list of features, and to do it with consistent distinctive assets that hook the situation to the right name. When we mapped CEPs for a food client, it turned out the brand was very strong on a single consumption moment and absent from all the others, and those others, added together, were most of the category. Progress is measured by folding CEPs into brand tracking over time.
CEPs and mental availability: what is the relationship?
CEPs are the tool with which mental availability is measured and built. A brand with high mental availability is simply a brand linked to many relevant CEPs in the minds of many people. Mapping them turns a generic goal into a concrete plan, ten precise situations in which the brand must be remembered instead of a vague «get us better known».
FAQ
What is the difference between a category entry point and a customer need?
A CEP is broader: it includes the need but also the context that triggers it, meaning moment, place, company, mood. It does not describe what the customer wants in the abstract, but the concrete situation in which they think of the category. That contextuality is what makes it useful for building recall.
How many CEPs should a brand own?
As many as possible, among the relevant and widespread ones. Mental availability grows with the number of CEPs a brand is linked to. Priority goes to the large entry points where the brand is still weak, not those it already dominates.
Do CEPs apply in B2B too?
Yes. In B2B, CEPs are the situations that trigger the search for a supplier, such as a contract nearing renewal, an operational problem or growth to manage. Linking the brand to them builds recall toward the 95% of buyers not yet in market.
How do you discover a category's CEPs?
Through research on buying and consumption circumstances, investigating when, where, with whom, in what mood and for what goal the need arises. The CEPs collected are then ranked by prevalence and by strength of association with the brand.
Sources and references
- Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. Category Entry Points Dissected: How They Really Contribute to Growth. Ehrenberg-Bass.
- Romaniuk, J. (2023). Increasing mental market share by using category entry points. jenniromaniuk.com.
- Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. How do you measure How Brands Grow? Ehrenberg-Bass.
PS: the cover of this article is AI-generated.
