Category entry points: what they are and how to find yours

What are category entry points?

Category entry points are the cues buyers use to access their memories when they face a buying situation. This is the definition used in research by Professor Jenni Romaniuk for the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and LinkedIn's B2B Institute (Marketing Week).

A category entry point is the moment before the brand. You are thirsty after a long day at the beach. A neighbour at a birthday party tells you how much he saved with solar panels. Both examples come from a 2025 interview published on Romaniuk's own site (Jenni Romaniuk, 2025). In each case the situation comes first, and the brands that surface are the ones memory has already linked to it.

The concept sits at the centre of mental availability, which is the likelihood that a brand comes to mind when someone is ready to buy. Category entry points play a prominent role in How Brands Grow by Byron Sharp and the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute.

Conclusion: The buyer's moment comes first. The brand comes second.

Why do category entry points matter for growth?

Category entry points matter because people mostly choose from the brands they remember, and buying situations are what trigger that memory. The B2B Institute's study of business banking, run with Ehrenberg-Bass, puts it plainly: "Only the mentally available brands get remembered, considered, and ultimately chosen" (B2B Institute). The same study notes that only a small number of buyers are in the market at any given time, and they tend to consider only the brands they recall.

The effect can be measured. An analysis of the US insurance sector found that customers who linked fewer category entry points to a brand were more likely to switch. Regression modelling across 17 products suggested that "each additional category entry point a customer links to a brand in their memory lowers the probability of defection by 5%" (Romaniuk for Ehrenberg-Bass and LinkedIn's B2B Institute, reported by Marketing Week).

That figure comes from one sector, so it should not be copied into another. The principle behind it holds more widely. Linking a brand to as many relevant cues as possible increases mental availability (Jenni Romaniuk, 2025).

How do category entry points work in a buyer's mind?

Category entry points work as triggers. A situation prompts memory, and memory returns a short list of brands. The cues can be internal, "such as motives and emotions", or external, "including location and time of day" (Marketing Week).

At IW Agency, we find it useful to break every entry point into three parts: the moment, the motive and the feeling. The moment is where and when. The motive is what the buyer is trying to get done. The feeling is the emotional state they bring with them, and it is the part brand teams most often leave out.

A Swedish classic shows what this looks like in practice. Since the 1950s, Pucko has been the go-to chocolate milk, often drunk alongside a hotdog. That pairing is an entry point: a specific moment that already has a brand attached to it.

What do people get wrong about category entry points?

The most common mistake is to treat category entry points as brand messages. Romaniuk is direct about this: "Category entry points are not about the brand, they're about the buyer" (Marketing Week). "Tastes great" is a claim about the product. "Something sweet with the afternoon coffee" is an entry point.

Three other misreadings come up often:

• Confusing them with segments. One person passes through many buying situations in a week. Entry points describe situations, not types of people.

• Chasing one big moment. In the insurance analysis, fewer links meant more switching. A brand tied to a single situation has fewer ways to be remembered.

• Treating them as a consumer-only idea. Much of the recent evidence comes from LinkedIn's B2B Institute, including its study of business banking.

How do you find your category entry points?

You find your category entry points by listing the situations in which people buy your category and then narrowing them to the ones that matter most for your brand. The B2B Institute calls it "a process of elicitation and elimination to land on the buying situations that matter most to your brand" (B2B Institute).

In practice, the work follows five steps:

1. Elicit. Ask category buyers, not only your own customers, when, where, why and with whom they buy. Write down their words, not yours.

2. Map. Measure which brands buyers link to each situation. The banking study shows "which brands dominate which CEPs and which whitespaces are open for the taking."

3. Eliminate. Keep the situations that are common, credible for your brand and not firmly held by a stronger competitor.

4. Build. Bring the chosen entry points into communication, packaging and design, so that the brand and the situation always appear together.

5. Track. Re-measure regularly, because buyers' situations change over time.

When should a brand team work with category entry points?

Category entry points are most useful when a brand needs to reach buyers beyond its current base or to regain relevance. Repositioning, portfolio decisions and packaging redesigns all improve when you know which situations the brand should own.

In brand architecture, entry points help decide which brand in a portfolio carries which situation, so that sibling brands do not compete for the same moment. In a renewal, they show where a heritage brand still lives in people's memory. Seen this way, Gustavsberg's brief was to move from serving professionals to inspiring people without losing what made the brand great. That is a question about reaching new buying situations while keeping the old ones.

We also think entry points matter more as AI assistants take a bigger role in how people choose. People describe situations to an assistant, such as a gift for a host or a snack for a long drive. In our view, a brand that is clearly linked to those situations has a better chance of being the one the assistant names.

Conclusion: Prompts are buying situations, written down.

What does this mean for your brand?

• Start from the buyer's situation. List the moments when people buy your category before you write a single message.

• Aim for breadth with focus. Link the brand to several relevant situations. Avoid relying on one hero moment, and avoid trying to cover every moment.

• Name the feeling. Motives and emotions are cues too. Record the emotional state that belongs to each priority moment.

• Write them into the platform. Put your priority entry points in your brand platform so that Strategy, Design and Comms work from the same list.

• Test how you are found. Ask AI assistants situation-based questions about your category and see whether your brand appears.

Frequently asked questions

Who developed the idea of category entry points?

The concept comes from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. It is most closely associated with Professor Jenni Romaniuk, who led the research on category entry points with LinkedIn's B2B Institute.

What is the difference between category entry points and mental availability?

Mental availability is the likelihood that a brand comes to mind in buying situations. Category entry points are those situations. A brand builds mental availability by becoming linked to more of the entry points that are relevant to it.

How many category entry points should a brand target?

The sources cited here do not give a fixed number. The research supports linking a brand to as many relevant cues as possible. It also recommends prioritising the situations that matter most to your brand.

Do category entry points apply to B2B brands?

Yes. The B2B Institute and Ehrenberg-Bass have studied category entry points in business banking, where they mapped which brands dominate which buying situations for small and medium-sized businesses.

Start where the buyer starts

Category entry points move the starting point from what a brand wants to say to the moments when people actually buy. Brands linked to more of those moments are remembered more often and chosen more often. If you want to find the moments your brand should own, write to us at hello@iwagency.com.

Sources

• Ehrenberg-Bass: Linking brand messages to buying situations wins 'the mind and the market' — Marketing Week

• Category Entry Points Dissected: How They Really Contribute to Growth — Jenni Romaniuk, 2025

• Building A Customer-Led Growth Strategy — The B2B Institute, LinkedIn