Awareness Is Not Enough

The “Known but Not Chosen” problem and what to do about it.

First, let’s set the stage.

You already know that brand awareness is the extent to which people are able to recognize and recall your brand.

As you know, there are three general dimensions of brand awareness:

Brand recognition (aided recall) — a consumer’s ability to recognize a brand from a list. “Of these 10 vitamin and supplement brands, which ones have you heard of?”

Brand recall (unaided recall) — the ability of a consumer to retrieve the brand from memory using category cues. “When you think about vitamin C, which brands come to mind?”

Top-of-mind awareness means that a brand comes to mind first and most often when consumers are prompted with an unaided recall question.

People who buy your brand are generally much better at connecting your brand to the category. People who don’t buy your brand are less good at it. The goal is 100%, though no brand ever gets there. Coke and Nike are at, like, 90%.

When faced with a decision between a brand they know and a brand they don’t, most people choose the known brand. Which? Duh. So the goal of measuring brand awareness is to figure out how many people know your brand exists. And yes, it’s more nuanced than this.

Awareness is a foundational metric, of course. If a potential buyer is unaware of your brand, they won’t make a purchase. They can’t. It’s like trying to see out of your elbow. So awareness is crucial for new brands, small brands, brands entering a new category, and brands in categories like baby food, where buyers are only in the category for a short period of time. And for most brands, knowing your awareness score is a good thing. However …

It sounds like the title of the world’s most boring Bond film, but Awareness is not enough. It’s the first step, not the entire journey. Okay, why? Well, Awareness has some limitations.

One is the “Known but Not Chosen” problem.

Lots of brands are known. Brands like Rolls-Royce, Rolex and Hermès come to mind, but most people never get near those categories. Rolls-Royce made 5,712 cars in 2024, and no one we know bought one. For luxury brands, “Known but Not Chosen” seems to be more of a feature than a bug. However, even category buyers can recognize and recall plenty of brands they never choose.

“Known but Not Chosen” is often framed as a differentiation problem, and sometimes it is. It could also be a customer experience problem or a product problem.

If a brand is “Known but Not Chosen,” that means it’s fairly easy to think of, just not in buying situations. That’s an entirely different kind of problem, which we’ll get to in a moment.

In “Better Brand Health,” Jenni Romaniuk of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute writes, “The biggest barrier to a brand being bought is being thought of in the first place. The more cues a brand is salient for, the more chance it is to be evoked as an option in a buying situation.”

In other words, the real limitation to Brand Awareness as a metric (and an idea) is a lack of context. You’re missing the how, what, why, when, with what and with whom. You’re missing the consumer and the moments they enter the category. For example …

Let’s say you’re getting ready to order takeout pizza. The set of brands that comes to mind might include Little Caesars, Toppers, Domino’s and your neighborhood pizza place. Is this your consideration set? Not even close.

First, let’s say Dominos isn’t relevant here. You’re very aware of Dominos, but you never order from them because they’re nowhere near where you live. In this case, the “known but not chosen” problem is a physical availability issue. They’re not where you are. That leaves Little Caesars, Toppers and your neighborhood pizza place.

Little Caesars is not the greatest pizza on Earth. It is, however, cheap. Toppers is a little more expensive, and it’s fine. Your neighborhood pizza place, however, is really good. Their pizzas are wood-fired, and you can get all kinds of gourmet toppings, but it’s pricey and a little slow. Is that your consideration set? Maybe. It depends on when, why and with whom you’re ordering pizza.

Let’s say you and your partner are having a date night at home. Maybe you want really good pizza and a nice bottle of wine to go with it. You’re probably going to choose your local pizza place. In this consideration set, however, pizza might not be the only option. Maybe you’re deciding between pizza and Thai food. The sushi place a few blocks away is fantastic, too. Pizza is part of the consideration set. The category is “great takeout.” The entry point into the category is “fun night at home with your partner, and neither of you has to cook.”

Now, let’s say you’re having a few pals over to watch the Packers game, so you have a different consideration set entirely. You care what your friends think, so Little Caesars is out. The local pizza place is also out because you don’t really think of their pizza as “game food.” So Toppers is in the mix. Wings sound good, too, so Wingstop is also in the mix. What about ribs and sides from the local BBQ place? That’s a little extravagant, and this isn’t the Super Bowl (yet). Actually, wings sound perfect, so you order from Wingstop.

Okay, now you’re celebrating your daughter’s fourth birthday and she’s got, like, 30 friends coming to the party. You need a lot of pizza. You need it fast, cheap and good enough for four-year-olds. The choice is Little Caesars all day. But it could be hot dogs or some other food that’s easy to buy and make in large quantities. Or you could strategically plan the party between lunch and dinner, so all you need are snacks, drinks and a cake.

If Awareness is about the brand, Mental Availability is about the needs, wants and desires of your potential customers … and all the different moments that actually drive purchase. It’s the “and chill” of “Netflix and chill.” You don’t “and chill” with Disney+ or HBO Max. You could, of course, but you don’t.

Awareness is about coming to mind. Mental Availability is about coming to mind in a buying situation. That last bit is absolutely crucial, and it doesn’t just mean “at the register.” Also, keep in mind that the category is probably bigger and weirder than you might think.

For example, plenty of people eat chips and other savory snacks while watching sports, which makes “need a game-time snack to share with friends” a difficult moment to own in the minds of buyers. There are just so many options to choose from. Walkers Crisps (Lays in the US) is doing a very good job of owning that moment with a series of ads featuring famous footballers (soccer players in the US). However …

Through research, they also found an unexpected and delightful entry point into the category — the sandwich. Plenty of people have chips with their lunch. Kids especially. Kids also put chips on their sandwiches because kids are awesome. Adults don’t, because we’ve forgotten how to experience joy. “For when you want to jazz up your sandwich” is not an obvious category entry point. Which? Is perfect. No one else is building and defending this category entry point because no one else thought of it. Walkers did, and they’re running with it.

Is Walkers going to sell a billion more chips because people put a few on their

sandwiches? No. But by building and reinforcing the connection between lunch and chips in the minds of potential buyers, adults are more likely to choose Walkers crisps when they’re making their lunches.

So, back to our original question. How do you solve the “Known but Not Chosen” problem? First, diagnose the problem. It might be a differentiation problem. It could be a physical availability problem. It could be a product problem or a customer experience problem. It very much could be a mental availability problem.

When buyers have a need, want or desire related to your category, does your brand come to mind? You’ve got to find those moments, own them and keep owning them forever. If you’re a smaller brand, a single moment will do for now. If you’re a medium-sized brand, you might want to find and own three or more. More is better, as long as you can properly build and defend them.

The goal is to create the connections between that moment and your brand in the minds of potential customers, so that when people are ready to buy, they think of you first.

We can help with that. We can help with the other stuff, too. We’ll see you next time.

Sources!

Management Perceptions of the Importance of Brand Awareness as an Indication of Advertising Effectiveness – Emma Macdonald and Byron Sharp
Better Brand Health – Jenni Romaniuk