Nielsen names its Innovation Winners – the tiny number of new FMCG products that actually make the grade
Research giant Nielsen has produced an interesting study – the Breakthrough Innovation Report – which shows, in short, that most FMCG marketers are wasting their time and money launching new products.
Nielsen examined 12000 FMCG launches in Europe going back to 2011 and found that 76 per cent of them failed to survive one year.
Of the ones that did only seven met Nielsen’s criteria for new product success. These are:
Choice: get the right innovation
Process: get the innovation right
Marketing: get the activation strategy right
Togetherness: get everyone right behind you
Which might be defined as doing your job properly. Anyway, the seven which met these criteria and succeeded in generating at least £10m sales in year one and maintaining 85 per cent of these in year two (when marketing spend drops presumably) were: Foster’s Gold (below); Magnum Infinity, Milka Choco Supreme, Mullerlight Greek-style Yogurt, Lucozade Energy Pink Lemonade, Oral-B Pro-Expert All-Around Protection and Sodebo Salade et Compagnie.
Nielsen dubs these its European Breakthrough Innovation Winners for 2014.
Three more products are on the way to meeting these criteria next year: Lay’s Xtra (Spanish food brand); Cadbury Dairy Milk Marvellous Creations and Ariel 3-in-1 Pods.
Interesting stuff – although most of these are what used to be called line extensions.
The full report will be available from Nielsen in mid-September.