evoked set

Decision makers start with an evoked set of possibilities - the people who immediately spring to mind.

However, the evoked set, or set of schools considered, will probably be limited to about ten.

At this time the consumer compares the brands and products that are in their evoked set.

How can the marketing organisation increase the likelihood that their brand is part of the consumer's evoked set?

The evoked set refers to the number of alternatives that are considered by consumers during the problem-solving process.

Shoppers start not with every single brand they are dimly aware of but with a group of options - the evoked set - uppermost in their minds.

The evoked set of "action stars" didn't overlap with the evoked set of "black movie stars."

Crest and Colgate are the evoked set, the one from which most shoppers will choose to buy - especially if they aren't looking at snappy product displays for other brands.

(An alternative term, "consideration set," is sometimes used for the same concept and sometimes for the smaller set of choices that remain after consumers eliminate unacceptable options from the evoked set.)

"An evoked set consists of the brands in a product category that the consumer remembers at the time of decision making," according to "Marketing: Best Practices," a textbook edited by K. Douglas Hoffman.

Overcoming those limits is the argument for a certain type of affirmative action - not quotas or preferences, but an active effort to select from the full range of possible candidates, not merely the first evoked set.