Brand salience is defined by the order in which brands come to mind in terms of the relevance of a brand in meeting customers needs. It is not what consumers think about brands but it will determine if a brand is recalled top-of-mind at a key time in the purchasing process. Brand salience is a key objective of communication campaigns as it drives much purchase behavior. A desired outcome of targeted communication campaigns is to make a brand „salient“ in the consumers consideration set or at least to get listed in the consumers evoked set.
The ability to be heard above crowded market places and cut through the clutter of communication campaigns enables brands to be accepted into consumer’s consideration sets. Therefore, communication campaigns are needed to register a brand name with the public and also to rank a brand at the top of the consumers mindspace. This must take into account the way in which the link between a category need and a brand is triggered at the time that a purchase decision is made. That is when the brand must be „salient“ and this may be triggered either by recognizing the package at the point-of-purchase, or recalling the brand name when the need to make a choice occurs.