While filling an unmet consumer need is an obvious goal when launching a new product innovation, developing the right product is only part of the equation for success.

Opportunities may ultimately be won or lost in the store, and marketers need a strong activation strategy to generate awareness and trial. In addition, all of this must be supported by a positive product experience. But which sources do consumers rely on to learn about new products? Where should marketers invest their time and money?

As the media landscape evolves, so too do the sources consumers use to find out about new products. For the purposes of The Nielsen Global New Product Innovation Survey, we've grouped the sources consumers say they use to get information about new products into three media categories: paid (traditional), earned and owned. Globally, shoppers' reliance on earned media is growing while their attention toward some paid media sources are declining.

More than half of global respondents (52%) cite TV ads a top source of new-product awareness—the second highest percentage of the 20 sources reviewed—but this has declined 11 percentage points since Nielsen’s 2012 survey. In fact, reliance on seven of the nine “paid media” sources included in the survey stayed flat or declined in the three-year period. The only paid-advertising sources to increase in importance were Internet ads and video sharing websites, which each rose one percentage point.

“Media fragmentation is largely the cause for the decline in the reliance on TV as a top source for new product awareness,” said Rob Wengel, senior vice president and managing director of Nielsen Innovation in the U.S. “While TV offers the widest audience reach, a multi-media approach is necessary to connect with consumers at all touch points. In fact, Nielsen brand awareness studies show that the combination of TV and digital advertising can increase brand recall by 33% and message recall by 45% compared to TV ads alone.”*

But creative execution counts, too. An ad should not only clearly demonstrate usage—emotional context is also important to ensure the message is memorable and persuasive. Put simply, outstanding creative sets itself apart by balancing imagination with meaningful content.

BUSTING THE MYTH ABOUT MILLENNIALS AND TRADITIONAL MEDIA

While it’s a fairly common belief that digitally savvy Millennial and Generation Z consumers can’t be effectively reached through traditional paid advertising like their older counterparts, this assumption isn’t entirely accurate.

As expected, the youngest respondents are relying more heavily on digital and mobile tools to learn about new products than their older counterparts. But they also say they’re using several types of traditional advertising at comparable—or even greater—levels. Generation Z and Millennial respondents use TV and radio to learn about new products at similar rates as Generation X and Baby Boomer respondents, and their reliance on outdoor billboards/posters, public transport ads and ads at public events exceeds that of their older counterparts.

Source:Nielsen

Delhi High Court has today allowed RED FM to participate in the auction of First Batch of Private FM Radio Phase- III.

Reaffirming faith in the country’s judicial system RED FM, COO, Ms Nisha Narayanan, expressed her pleasure on the outcome of its court case on permission to participate in the auction of First Batch of Private FM Radio Phase – III Channels starting from 27 July.

Commenting on the judgement of the Hon’ble Delhi High Court today, she said that the Hon’ble Court has pronounced only the operating portion of the judgement. We feel that the Hon’ble court has accepted our submission that we have no connection with the reasons for denial of security clearance and rejection of our application.

Welcoming that the issue has been settled Ms Nisha Narayanan said that we will continue with auction as per our plans of bidding for more frequencies “We are one of country’s largest network of FM stations and hopefully post the final outcome of these auctions we shall retain our leadership status.”

From the beginning we had kept a sizeable money to be spent on these auctions (through which government stands to earn with go ahead on our participation). Our inclusion means a healthy competition and will benefit the entire FM radio industry and media and entertainment industry at large.

In phase 3 also we have plans of going ahead with the philosophy of nurturing not only commercially viable bigger metro cities but also reaching out to the last corner of the country. At the end of phase 2 we had highest number of stations in North East and tier 3 & 4 cities as a network. This is something which we will continue in phase 3 also. Having said that, RED FM not only reached to some of the smaller cities but also gave the local music and entertainment industry a voice. It always believed in being a socially active and relevant entertainment medium, creating employment opportunities for local youth specially women and become a voice of city wherever it operates its station. Bajaate Raho !!!

For most marketers, there are two types of shoppers: Those who have bought a brand's product before (buyers) and those who haven't (non-buyers). Since buyers have already tried a product, marketers can use advertising to encourage additional buying or boost their connection to loyal and engaged customers. On the flip side, advertising can also help convert non-buyers into brand users, potentially driving additional market penetration and sales over the longer term.

However, it’s difficult to convince non-buyers of a specific brand to purchase it—though some are more likely to buy than others. To determine the value of a group of non-buyers, Nielsen Catalina Solutions (NCS) analyzed non-buyers across 13 brands to measure their responsiveness to advertising. NCS found that almost 40% of the non-buying households reached by a campaign delivered less than 20% of the actual incremental sales, which is a responsiveness index of 51. This index of 51 was calculated by dividing the percent of sales lift (20%) by the percent of households reached (40%), where an index of 100 would be average.

In short, this is a very inefficient way for brands to spend their advertising dollars. But what if they knew which people seeing their ads were the ones who were most likely to buy their products? To better understand today's consumers, NCS used “choice fragmentation” analysis to determine which non-buyers are most likely to buy a product. The analysis uses purchase data to help brands identify the most relevant audiences for their marketing objectives, especially for reaching consumers who are new to a brand.

Given today's rapidly changing media landscape, companies place notable emphasis on where marketers should be to meet consumers—from TV and radio to online and mobile. But how they identify, define and reach people is also important. Marketers need to consider the data mix available to them and then build the most productive audience segments—based on demographics, geography, lifestyle and purchase habits—to better reach the consumers who will drive the highest sales.

By identifying consumers who have not purchased a brand’s product in the last year and segmenting them into groups that are likely and unlikely to be converted into brand buyers, brands have a much clearer understanding of who to focus on as they plan and execute their ad campaigns. For example, by focusing on the people who are most likely to buy (from current non-buyers), the average responsiveness index across the tested 13 brands jumps from 51 to 149—three times greater lift.

When we apply this method across several categories, we see a wide range of results. But regardless of which case we look at, marketers are able to drive more sales when they use this method to appeal to likely buyers. In the baby care category, for example, the recent study found that “likely brand buyers” are almost four times more likely to purchase than “unlikely brand buyers.” For carbonated soft drinks, the likely brand buyers were almost 10 times more likely to purchase than unlikely brand buyers or non-category buyers.

Choice fragmentation allows marketers to use retail purchase data to help define audience groups that align with their business goals, such as reaching non-buyers who are likely to buy a product they’ve never tried before, and determining which non-buyers have the most sales potential. Furthermore, the ability to reach these segments through television programs and networks with a high concentration of the selected audiences is increasing return on advertising, in turn, changing the face of audience segmentation.

The greatest inventions of the last two centuries have one thing in common – their creators fumbled, stumbled and erred enough times to make a virtue of perseverance. The other great commonality that rarely gets spoken of is that they did not have quarterly targets to meet and often bootstrapped themselves to fund their innovation. The world however has changed dramatically for innovators in the last half century. Not only are assessments by the world at large more exacting, investors and management are far less patient in their quest for success.

This is not without reason – we know from our own analysis that innovation is an integral driver of incremental growth and essential to profitable survival. Yet, very few companies and brands manage this in a manner that is truly breakthrough. Surprisingly, breakthrough innovation is not a quest for the impossible – to be conquered only through great wisdom and luck. There is a known path to breakthrough success for brands that use the right map. The tenets of breaking through, though thought to be elusive, often remains strikingly similar across those who manage to achieve it. It rests upon fundamental truths that are embedded in the consumer’s life, rather than strategic and esoteric boardroom discussions.

Our report this year, emphasises these rules and then uncovers a few revelations too. The truth about breaking through in the Indian market:

Make yourself available to your core consumers: On average, our 23 winners were available in 115,000 stores at the end of six months and over 200,000 stores at the end of 18 months. Six winners attained 150,000 stores within six months of launch and five winners had distribution in over 250,000 at the end of 18 months.

Be worth your consumers’ hard earned money: The winners’ average revenue achievement was about INR 80 million at the end of six months which tripled to about INR 240 million by the end of 12 months.

Offer a genuine difference in your category: Even though many winners belonged to well-penetrated categories, on average they garnered 1.5% market share at the end of 18 months which was about 1% last year at the end of 18 months.

THE MAKING OF WINNERS

The current edition of the Breakthrough Innovation Report follows a similar approach that was employed in the first edition and examines all the new launches from more than 80 FMCG categories. For this report, we evaluated products launched in the calendar year 2012 and analysed their performance over next 18 months. To be a breakthrough innovation winner, a product needed to satisfy three requirements:

RELEVANCE: Generate launch-year revenues in the top 0.5 percentile for new FMCG launches in India (in the channels tracked by Nielsen in India). This corresponded to approximately INR 105 million sales in year one at a minimum.

ENDURANCE: This measure confirms a sustained level of consumer demand after the launch year. Winners had to either double launch year sales in months 13-18 or generate revenues in the top 0.5 percentile at the 18 month milestone for all launches. This corresponds to approximately INR 177 million sales at a minimum in the channels tracked by Nielsen in India.

DISTINCTIVENESS: Deliver a new value proposition to the market. Our innovation experts excluded re-packaging, reformulations, and re-positioning and ensured that distinctive offerings that abided by demand-led principles and/or differentiated themselves with breakthrough execution made the final cut.

Our success criteria for threshold sales have come down marginally from 2011 because the average sales generated by all the new launches was lesser in 2012. This further impresses the fact that with overall consumer expenditure coming down, achieving success in 2012 and 2013 was even more difficult. The winners therefore had to show tremendous agility to stay relevant, sustain their endurance and offer distinctiveness to impress consumers.

SUCCEEDING IN TOUGH TIMES

The 23 breakthrough brands we selected are spread across 17 categories ranging from food, personal and household care and overthe-counter pharma products. Though the odds of success remained the same, fewer brands could survive the criterion of distinctiveness, relevance and endurance as compared to 2011. The overall rate of success dropped to 0.1% in 2012, compared with 0.2% in 2011. This was true for both global and local players and nearly similar to the marginal drop in the success rate of top players. However, the top 20 FMCG players continued to dominate the innovation space with the total number of new launches from them going up to 491 in 2012 from 437 in 2011, reinstating the fact that leading companies in FMCG are still the torchbearers on the path of innovation.

Source: Nielsen

RECMA has named Vizeum as the world’s fastest growing media network in its Overall Activity Billings 2014 report published this week.

Across the sixteen global agencies assessed by RECMA, Vizeum increased activity billings year-on-year by +29.1%, 9% more than the second ranked agency.

Top 5 growth rates of ‘Overall Activity’ Billings 2014:

1-     Vizeum + 29.1%

2-     BPN + 20%

3-     Arena + 12.3%

4-     MediaCom + 11.5%

5-     Dentsu media + 11.1%

In absolute volume, Vizeum increased its OA Billings by + $m 2183 (the 3rd highest growth).

Vizeum was launched in 2003 with the ambition of being clients’ most innovative partner in the digital age.  The network has now grown to 65 offices in 45 markets.   Thomas Le Thierry founded Vizeum in France and was appointed Global President, Vizeum in 2013. The network manages global clients from seven Global Hubs in London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo and Wiesbaden.

Key wins for the Vizeum  network in 2014 included ABinBEV (Europe), Burger King (Europe) and Shiseido (Global).  Vizeum also expanded its relationships with Sonos, Ikea and BMW in new markets.

Key wins in India during 2014/15 include  BMW, Jet Airways, HDFC, Hindware, Allied Blenders and Distillers, Saint-Gobain,  Jet Privilege and Viacom 18 Media.

Quote from Thomas Le Thierry, “We have achieved this impressive growth through our single-minded focus on making innovation in media create value for clients.  We have built a consistent network which now has real momentum.  This growth helps us to keep the agility required in the fast moving environment. It's the only way we can credibly remain on the edge of the industry doing best in class work for our clients.”

Commenting on this big development for the network, said S Yesudas, Managing Director, Indian Subcontinent, Vizeum, “It is indeed a matter pride for all of us that Vizeum has achieved this great recognition in such a short span.  This belongs to our passionate and committed team and the ever-supportive clients. Vizeum was launched in India towards the end of 2009.  We have already been able to carve out an interesting niche for ourselves within 5 years. We are on the path to achieving excellence in everything we do.”