What's the point of Marketing anyway? The prevalence, temporal extent and implications of long-term market share equilibrium

Marketers invest substantial budgets to influence consumer behaviour using a sophisticated range of tools, but the evidence to date points to market-share equilibrium in most FMCG categories, at least over the short-term. We describe new research into long-term market share dynamics using data from a continuous six-year panel of continuous reporters. Astonishingly, we find that even over 26 quarters marketing interventions appear to have no permanent effect on brand share. We find exceptions, but these result from strategic marketing activity or discontinuous innovation rather than marketing mix tactics. Where it occurs, brand-share growth is seen to be in line with Double Jeopardy norms. We demonstrate how use of the NBD-Dirichlet may therefore be extended to model long-term evolving category structure accurately, in order to derive realistic marketing objectives.