Your future customer
Next up in our Mark Ritson inspired series is the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. Now, they don't have the glamour of Cannes, the buzz of Silicon Valley or the aura of Madison Avenue, but when the likes of Coca-Cola, P&G, and McDonald's want to know how marketing really works, they don't call New York or London. They call Adelaide.
Led by Professor Byron Sharp, this unassuming team has revolutionised how smart brands think about everything. They've proven that most of what we thought we knew about customer loyalty was wrong. They've shown why distinctive beats different. And they've explained why your cleverest creative might be missing the point entirely.
Based at the University of South Australia, the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science is the world's largest centre for research into marketing effectiveness. It's there that John Dawes discovered something that should change how we think about every brief.
In B2B markets, only 5% of your potential customers are shopping right now. The other 95% will buy eventually.
While this specific statistic comes from B2B research, the principle applies across categories: most of your future customers aren't actively shopping today, which means you really have two audiences: the small group looking for rational reasons to buy today, and the majority who you want to remember you when they're finally ready to buy.
At the Pitch Collective, we're all about effectiveness, whether it's selling more than ever before, or getting people to stop, think and act. The challenge is, campaign success is often judged on immediate conversions.
Yet that misses the long-term opportunity of building mental availability with future buyers.
As The Long and The Short Of It has shown, when someone's laptop dies or their insurance comes up for renewal, which brand comes to mind first? That's what future-focused creative is really about.
What this means for creative work: The best creative often serves people who aren't shopping today. It's about earning a place in memory through emotion, distinctive assets, and being genuinely memorable for the right reasons.
The long game: This is where transformative creativity lives. Not in immediate conversion metrics, but in building mental structures that pay off over time.
For the Pitch Collective: We balance creative for today's conversions with creative for tomorrow's mental availability. Because sustainable effectiveness means serving both audiences with work that's right for each.
#MentalAvailability #FutureCustomers #ThePitchCollective