Market Share

Market share is the proportion of any market that is achieved by a specific product or service of a company in the mix of competitors. Of all automobiles sold in the United States, for instance, how many were manufactured under the General Motors name? Even more specifically, market share can be determined for each individual model in an array of products. Thus, the market share can be calculated for Chevrolet and GMC (General Motors Company) pickups among all pickups sold in the United States. Even more specific market share calculations could be made by state or by demographic. Thus, market share in the most specific [Page 505]sense is a sheer accounting record of the portions of a market as it is divided among competitors.

Public relations is one of several business functions that provides strategies and tools that can be used to affect the market share enjoyed by any competitor in a specific market for goods or services. Differentiating between marketing and public relations was simpler when Edward L. Bernays was practicing, teaching, and writing about public relations. To quote Bernays, “Marketing is properly concerned with the distribution of products, public relations concerns itself with the distribution of ideas which may or may not include products” (1955, pp. 63–64).

The goal of marketing is “to attract and satisfy customers (or clients) on a long-term basis in order to achieve an organization's economic objectives” (Wilcox, Cameron, Ault, & Agee, 2003, p. 15). In other words, the goal of marketing is to maintain or increase the market share of a product or service, the proportion of consumers of a product category who consume the product of the client. Thus, integrated marketing communication—primarily a strategic blend of advertising and pubic relations—is used by each competitor in a market to try to increase its market share. Since market share is always a proportional calculation, the increase of market share by one competitor is achieved by the loss of market share of one or more competitors.

How public relations serves this marketing function is a matter of consideration and debate. At one extreme, any communication effort—even the use of events created purely for marketing purposes—can be employed. Customer relations, often a purview of public relations, can help keep or expand market share. Practiced in what many believe to be the most ethical way, the goal of public relations is to achieve mutual understanding and cooperation between the client and the array of publics—customers in this sense—who affect and are affected by the client. Convergence—the merging of public relations, product advertising, and strategic communication functions—is thought to be one of the ways to maximize the contributions of several related professions.

One of the strategic objectives of organizations working to increase their brand share is to first increase the mindshare customers have regarding their product in contrast to those of their competitors. Cornelius Dubois coined the term mindshare to represent one brand's standing compared with other brands in the opinion of potential customers. Mindshare, according to Dubois, predicts market share. Because product ideas are not the only types of ideas competing for share of mind, Bernays (1955) expanded the notion of mindshare to mean the share of peoples' minds relative to competing attitudes or ideas (p. 65).

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