Physical Availability and the Buying Situation
The productive tension
Mental availabilityandphysical availability
one without the other is waste
The synthesis
The brand-building tradition emphasises mental availability — get into the mind and the sale follows. The distribution tradition emphasises physical availability — be where the buyer is and they will choose you. Both are essential. Both alone are insufficient. Mental availability without physical availability creates frustrated demand — a brand people want but cannot find. Physical availability without mental availability creates invisible supply — a brand on the shelf that nobody reaches for. The evidence-based marketer invests in both, understanding that they are not competing priorities but complementary halves of a single growth equation. The evidence from the Dirichlet model and decades of panel data confirms it: brand growth requires both being thought of and being findable.
Learning objectives
- →Define physical availability and explain its components beyond simple distribution
- →Describe how the Dirichlet model explains brand switching through availability rather than preference
- →Explain the mere exposure effect and how physical availability creates its own mental availability
- →Analyse the buying situation as the intersection of mental and physical availability
- →Articulate the Both/And of mental and physical availability as the twin engines of brand growth
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