Marketing, as a discipline, is becoming increasingly business orientated with afocus on internal profitability, growth and revenue projection being closely linkedto marketing activities and their impact on market share.Despite the utilisation of market share as a key measure for performance, verylittle understanding exists on how marketing levers impact market share, andthe relative strength of the impact.It is in this environment that the researcher seeks to develop a prediction tool inthe form of a market share model for FMCG brands in South Africa.In order to develop a model, consumer choice behaviour was explored, the keymarketing activities focusing on McCarthy’s (1993) 4P’s were identified thatimpact market share, and a Conceptual Market Share Model was developedthat integrated the plethora of literature into a visual representation of therelationships and inter-relationships between the numerous marketing mixvariables. While a total of twenty-one variables were identified as having animpact on market share, the key levers were identified as advertising intensity,brand equity, penetration and distribution, consumption, loyal customers,structural price change, price promotion, depth of promotion and stockpiling.A review of the commonly available quantitative data in South Africa whichincluded Nielsens Nitro, Nielsens Homepanel and Adex, determined that themajority of key identified variables were available with the exception of salespromotion activities, namely price promotion, depth of promotion andstockpiling.An MCI Model was utilised for the purposes of developing a market sharemodel with quantitative single-intersect data from three independent FMCGcategories’ being used in order to compare results across categories. Anumber of permutations of the model were done for each category with anii iAdjusted MCI Model being developed that incorporated growth indicators asmoderators to specific variables.As a managerial tool, some questions were raised regarding the reliability of theMCI Model due to high variances between brands’ actual market share andestimated share, as well as the negligible impact advertising spend was foundto have on market share which is contrary to the body of literature. However,the model did provide insights into the key levers that impact market share andhow each category has unique category drivers that are specific to that marketenvironment and competitive set.As such, their was a partial acceptance of the proposition in terms of theproposed marketing mix variables and the development of a market sharemodel for FMCG brands in South Africa.
