New Balance: Category and Brand Entry Points

The episode introduces two crucial marketing concepts: Category Entry Points (CEPs) and Brand Entry Points (BEPs). CEPs describe the moments when consumers realize they need a particular product category, like running shoes. BEPs refer to the subsequent stage where specific brands come to mind as potential choices within that category. This highlights New Balance's strategy with its "Run Hub Yoyogi Park" store as an example of how a company can strategically create scenarios that prompt the need for a category (CEP) and simultaneously ensure their brand is top-of-mind (BEP), thereby influencing consumer purchasing decisions by appearing in the consumer's "evoked set" of brands.