Keinichi Ohmae (1982 ), a strategy expert, considers brand share to be an important contributor to the development of a brand strategy.

Brand share indicates how for the brand satisfies the consumer needs.

Active brand share is the given by the consumers actively competed for and won . It could be further subdivided into the following categories depending upon customer satisfaction and bying behaviour.

Brand loyal customers are satisfied by the brand and continue patronising it. The strategy adopted is to improve the  satisfaction and remove dissatisfaction as soon as it appears.

Brand switchers are satisfied with the brand but fall prey to competitor’s brand on account of sales promotion. The trade off they are making  must be understood and factored into  formulating the brand strategy.

Apathetics feel the brand falls short of fully satisfying their needs, but continue with the brand just to avoid inconvenience. The brand can be fine tuned to meet their needs. To illustrate, bank customers are reluctant to switch to a new brand as account opening is cumbersome.

Doubters have tried the brand but their next buy would be another brand, though there is effort involved in doing so. Their perceptions of what the brand could do for them or about them have not even realised. The reason for this perceptions must be studied and if possible, changes can be considered.

Several brands do not realise their full potential as they are not available. It requires distribution strategy.

There are brands where customers are competed for and lost. The introductory model of Indica had technical problems. The model was improved and new model VZ was launched, which became successful.

Our brand may not offer something extra that the customers are seeking. The challenge here is to develop new versions which improve on the core brand.

Passive brand share is another component of brand share consisting of customers intending to buy our brand.

The more the success of the brand, the closer the ratio of active and passive brand share. It approaches 1. Market research helps to determine this ratio by recording the buying intention and then the actual purchase. If the brand bought is different from the purchase intent, the reasons can be found out. It helps as to fine tune our marketing strategy.