The Most Promising Nielsen for New Product Launches - NielsenIQ Review

2020 has shown that consumer love for new products is ineradicable. Despite the pandemic, up to 120 new products appear on store shelves every day in Europe alone. In RUSSIA, only 15% of companies refused to launch new products due to covid-19 , and new product sales accounted for 4.2% of FMCG sales, up 0.3 p.p. more than a year earlier. Successful innovations are united by compliance with two trends:

Trend No. 1. Conscious lifestyle

Half (52%) of the new products that have been the most successful in 2020 are following a trend that is characterized by the desire of buyers to lead a more conscious lifestyle. More than ever, consumers are looking for healthy products and green packaging. If in 2019 only 26% of the winners of “breakthrough innovations” focused on healthy lifestyles, caring for the environment and trying to reduce their personal carbon footprint, then in 2020 their number has doubled. And in the short term, we can safely expect that it will continue to grow.

Trend number 2. The desire to pamper yourself

The growing demand for healthy foods does not preclude the need for self-indulgence. As consumers are deprived of the former opportunity to travel, relax and entertain outside the home, it is the purchase of new products that has become one of the ways to please themselves and reduce the stress caused by the pandemic and social isolation. According to the NielsenIQ Bases* report, products with a good mix of "acceptable pleasure" and "simple pleasure" accounted for almost half (44%) of all new products introduced to the market in 2020.

After analyzing the performance of all launched new products in the FMCG market in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the usa in 2020, we have identified five niches that have great potential for success in the next 2-3 years:

The trend towards veganism and switching to “alternative products” emerged in the FMCG market long before the pandemic, but now it has received a new impetus. A vivid example of this is Ripple's high-protein MILK and vegetable MEAT BEYOND MEAT from pea protein. According to Beyond Meat founder Ethan Brown, 93% of their customers also eat meat. This is one of the reasons for the success of plant-based products: from a narrow niche, they formed a separate category that united not only vegetarians, but also consumers who are concerned about the ethical and humane treatment of animals.