Share of voice: Marketoon of the Week

This week’s Marketoon examines the classic metric, share of voice.

Fishburne’s take: Share of voice (SOV) became a marketing staple decades ago.  In theory, share of voice is a simple way to compare a brand’s media spending against the total media spending of the category.  The metric was bolstered by research from Peter Field and Les Binet that showed a link between share of voice and share of market.  They found that if a brand increased their share of voice beyond that equilibrium (creating an “excess share of voice”), it could result in market share growth.

The rise of digital muddied the waters.  Share of voice is much harder to calculate in digital channels.  This has led to renewed attention and debate around additional or alternative metrics.  Les Binet has been researching the value of share of search (SOS), which some like Mark Ritson advocate as a potential replacement and others like Shann Biglione at Zenith see as a different tool altogether.

Why we care: An overall share of voice might be difficult to measure across all digital channels, but that’s not the point of a digital channel. Instead, marketers should be using them for performance-based metrics that tie impressions and engagement to real revenue.