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My limited understanding is that it applies to a company that comes first when people think about a particular topic. Could I say Microsoft is a mind-share leader for Operating Systems?

The expression is on various websites, and my company just chose it as its slogan.

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Also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindshare – simchona♦ Aug 3 '11 at 2:37
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This question appears to be strictly about the definition of a word that you could look up in a dictionary or on Wikipedia, so I have voted to close it as a general reference question. However, if you wanted to ask a specific question about how to use this phrase (or some other question like that), I think it would be considered on-topic. – KitFox♦ Aug 3 '11 at 2:40
A related word that may be of interest to you is synecdoche. – KitFox♦ Aug 3 '11 at 3:08
Thanks for synecdoche! I was viewing the expression as a whole, not as a sum of its single-word parts. Of course I had looked up mind share in a dictionary, and was still not sure what the whole expression meant exactly. – Nicolas Raoul Aug 3 '11 at 4:37

closed as general reference by simchona♦, KitFox♦, Thursagen, F'x, waiwai933♦ Aug 3 '11 at 15:22

This question is too basic; it can be definitively and permanently answered by a single link to a standard internet reference source designed specifically to find that type of information. See the FAQ for guidance on how to improve it.

2 Answers

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Yes, you're correct in your understanding of the term. The Wikipedia entry for mind share may be of help.

When people think of examples of a product type or category, they usually think of a limited number of brand names. For example, a prospective buyer of a college education will have several thousand colleges to choose from. However, the evoked set, or set of schools considered, will probably be limited to about ten. Of these ten, the colleges that the buyer is most familiar with will receive the greatest attention.

In your company's case, it doesn't seem to make sense. I guess it means that when I think of "generating paradigms," the first name that comes to mind is "aegif." I can assure you that this is not the case.

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up vote 2 down vote

You're on the right track. One dictionary says that the definition is:

the level of awareness in the minds of consumers that a particular product commands

A mindshare leader, then, is the company which commands the highest level of this awareness. A company which is a mindshare leader will be the first name you think of when you picture a given product; the company and the product become synonymous. Wikipedia gives some great examples of these leaders. The top example is Google: when you run an internet search, you might say you're googling, whether or not you use Google.com specifically. Other examples are Kleenex, Bandaids, and Tupperware.

To address your question about Microsoft: I would say that yes, Microsoft is a mind-share leader for operating systems. When I think of computers, it will be a Windows OS that comes to mind.

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