Innovation vitality: How to launch more enduring products and incremental innovations

For years, manufacturers have leaned on a success vs. failure dichotomy to evaluate their innovation performance. But this measure often proves too simplistic, ignoring the roles that comprise different innovation types in a portfolio and often overlooking more complex measures like incrementality and endurance.

Last year, NIQ BASES introduced its “vitality” framework to evaluate innovation performance. Although our analysis determined that 52% of new product launches demonstrate vitality (i.e., grew sales in Y2 compared to Y1) – a much more favorable statistic than the often touted 95% failure rate – our findings have driven many manufacturers to reassess their internal processes and metrics like stage-gate criteria, category benchmarks and systemic checks and balances to ensure long-term performance.

In this session, BASES SVP of Global Innovation Intelligence Mike Jones will share the crucial components of pre- and post-launch metrics and best practices to ensure incrementality and sustained growth. Drawing on his years of experience helping businesses boost their innovation potential, he’ll leverage AI-powered analytics to explore new norms that help prioritize decision criteria, resource allocation and retailer selling actions into sustainable and repeatable models for innovation development and implementation.

Key Takeaways:

1. Contrary to popular belief, CPG innovations are not doomed to failure. In fact, 52% of new items with national distribution increase sales in their second year on the market.
2. Time is of the essence when it comes to measuring and managing launched innovations, with divergence between growers and decliners occurring as early as four weeks post-launch.
3. Finding the right concept and product, pairing it with great activation and monitoring and adjusting innovation performance in real time can increase manufacturers’ odds of achieving innovation vitality.