Conceptualizing and measuring brand salience

Historically, brand salience has been considered synonymous with the brand being ‘top of mind’ (mentioned first) when the product category is used to cue retrieval from memory. In this article we argue that this conceptualization (and associated measure) is too narrow. We show that there is value in distinguishing salience from the concepts of awareness and attitude by conceptualizing brand salience as the brand’s propensity to be noticed or come to mind in buying situations. Brand salience reflects the quantity and quality of the network of memory structures buyers’ hold about the brands. This article offers guidelines to facilitate research on the role of brand salience in brand choice and buyer behaviour that are an important progression from the evaluation (attitude) focus of contemporary marketing theory.