At the heart of sustainable market growth lies a concept that’s often overlooked for flashier, short-term tactics: your brand’s volume, or its Share of Voice (SOV). During his impactful ‘5 in Twenty’ session at marketingSHOWCASE, Jon Mowat from Hurricane Social dissected the powerful and proven link between the ‘noise’ your brand makes and its market-share trajectory.
Forget the complexity of fleeting digital trends for a moment. Industry experts confirm a foundational truth: your investment in communication is directly correlated with your future success. According to the data shared, achieving a 100% excess share of voice can drive a 5% market increase. This powerful connection underscores why SOV is essential for robust brand building and is a non-negotiable metric for any marketer aiming for serious growth.
The problem with chasing differentiation
If making more ‘noise’ is the answer, what should that noise focus on? Marketers often spend considerable time and budget chasing “meaning-based differentiation” in workshops, positioning statements, and purpose platforms. The goal is to articulate a unique selling proposition (USP) that explains why someone should use the brand—often resulting in generic statements like “What makes us unique is our people” or “We put customers at the heart of everything we do”.
But, as Jon pointed out, the brands that grow fastest often do something much simpler.
The unmistakable power of distinctiveness
Most of the time, consumers aren’t performing deep analyses of USPs; they simply buy the first brand that comes to mind.
Instead of obsessing over differentiation, the focus needs to shift to distinctiveness. Distinctiveness is about forming strong memory structures that make the brand easy to recognise and recall. It’s about being unmistakable.
To do this, marketers need to “sweat every brand asset” and stop hiding them away. These distinctive assets are the visual and auditory cues that instantly signal your brand to the consumer:
- Logos
- Colours
- Characters
- Taglines
- Packaging
By strengthening these assets and ensuring they are present wherever your brand communicates, you increase your SOV effectively and build the mental availability required for market growth. This simple, data-driven strategy is a valuable lesson for every marketing professional looking to shift focus from mere activity to predictable, sustainable progress.
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