Packaging is a ‘dark horse’ in the case of breakthrough innovations

Nielsen analysed the market performance of 9,900 new products in its latest Breakthrough Innovation Report. There are eleven products in the report that realised at least EUR or GBP 7.5-million sales in Western Europe and EUR 5-million sales in Eastern Europe in their first year, and were able to repeat at least 90 percent of this performance in the second year. The report revealed that packaging design plays a key role when consumers decide which product to buy. Ben Schubert, Nielsen’s senior vice president responsible for the commercial leadership of innovation practice pointed out that packaging design is a dark horse in marketing. It is rather underestimated and paid little attention to in comparison with other sales incentive tools. In his view experts shouldn’t forget that almost 60 percent of buying decisions is made in-store, standing in front of the shelves.

Mr Schubert called attention to the examples of the new Whiskas dry cat food in the UK and Air Wick air freshener in France – in the case of these product launches packaging design played an important role. In Europe the average new product realises EUR 300,000 annual sales in its first year, less than one third than the average of products already present in the market. Nielsen’s expert added that manufacturers need to be familiar with consumer expectations and develop new products with these in mind. In his view developing a product that consumers will like means having completed only half of the task: the other half is the perfect market launch, which makes it possible for the product to exploit its full potential. No matter how special and promising a product is, it won’t take off without working hard on its marketing.