Dive Brief:
- Innovation remains key to sustained growth in food and beverage manufacturing, but manufacturers have to weigh whether it's preferable to be the first to attempt an innovation or to be the best at it, according to commentary from Nielsen Innovation Practice's VP of Product Marketing, Mike Black.
- The competitive landscape encourages manufacturers to be more nimble and to improve their speed to market, particularly for new innovations. But if manufacturers don't commit the time and effort to quality control and ensuring their products meet consumers' demands, speed could cost them market share when a competitor releases the next best iteration.
- To address both speed to market and quality retention, Nielsen recommends concept testing solutions or strategies that involve more collaboration, but get faster and more efficient input from multiple parties. The company also recommends consistent data collection and analysis, and dynamic data analysis and reporting that addresses factors like ROI.
Dive Insight:
As manufacturers embrace innovation as a route to top-line growth, they must balance both speed to market and quality of the product. Once an innovation hits the market, it's fair game, to an extent. If a manufacturer doesn't hook the audience on a new product upfront, it risks wasting time, money and effort on a product that tanks or is overshadowed.
Chobani is a prime example of what happens when a manufacturer aims to be the best rather than the first. The brand is practically synonymous with Greek yogurt in the minds of many consumers, and it owns more than one-third of the Greek yogurt market share.
But it wasn't the first Greek yogurt brand in the U.S. Chobani overtook Fage, the leading Greek yogurt producer in Greece, which predates Chobani in the U.S. by nearly a decade. Ad Age credits Fage's downfall to its niche approach while Chobani successfully aimed for a more mainstream audience. It's about being first to mind, not first to market, according to Ad Age.
Another example is Barilla, which became the No.1 pasta brand in the U.S. just three years after its 1996 debut. Ad Age attributes the brand's success to its commercials and promotion of the brand's credentials—it is the leading pasta brand in Italy—rather than features of the product. By the 1990s, Barilla was certainly not the first pasta brand to hit U.S. grocery stores. But the brand's approach resonated with consumers and floated Barilla to the top of the category.