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Success Story

Product innovation that breaks the mold: 3 key features of Breakthrough Innovation winners

Success Story

Product innovation that breaks the mold: 3 key features of Breakthrough Innovation winners


The analysis of the 2020 Breakthrough Innovation winners, as chosen by NielsenIQ BASES, revealed three key themes that contributed to their success: discovering new opportunities, breaking the mold with development and activation, and acting with the right timelines and support.


Discover new opportunities for your brand to break through

Case studies

While differentiation and incrementality are valuable for breaking onto the shelf, many launches aren’t incremental: about 25% of new products actually shrink total brand sales. But, a successfully executed extension can drive sustained growth, and luckily there are multiple avenues to increase consumption and penetration in order to do so: 

  • Attracting new buyers
  • Expanding your brand into new occasions
  • Capitalizing on a trend
  • Premiumization
  • Growing distribution 

Multiple winners of the 2020 Breakthrough Innovation awards from NielsenIQ BASES successfully grew their brand by expanding into a new usage occasion. They employed various tactics to differentiate the innovation from the parent brand product and cue the new occasion, while still maintaining core aspects of brand equity.

Even the best ideas and most compelling extensions will struggle to achieve success without a strong performing product. According to NielsenIQ BASES R&D analysis, there’s an 80% failure rate for products deemed “not ready” in pre-market product tests that launch anyway. On the other hand, there is 30% greater year-one sales for launches with strong product performance over those with weak performance. NielsenIQ BASES Breakthrough Innovations don’t cut corners when it comes to delivering exceptional product experiences.


Break the mold and bring your innovation to life

Case studies

Traditional research and awareness-driving tools continue to be the foundation for learning and activation. The 2020 BASES Top Breakthrough Innovations employed new-to-the-brand activation tactics that were customized to the innovation and its audience.

Person innovating their products

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Act intentionally with the right timelines & support

Case studies

The pace of business is accelerating, but speedy decision-making alone does not yield success. Marketers must balance speed with fully delivering on the consumer insight. Across the NielsenIQ BASES Top Breakthrough Innovations, many teams made decisions to prioritize doing right by the innovation over delivering on speed alone. In many cases, ironically, these decisions enabled speed as well.

These winners had clear strategies to get team commitment and leadership support, and to generate both internal and retailer excitement, further enabling and driving success of the launches.

Build team commitment & excitement 

Select team members that are passionate about the opportunity space and empower them to make decisions that keep the consumer insight front and center.

Gain leadership support

Show leadership the money and bring them in early. Prove the initiative is worthy of support by presenting the opportunity space and sizing the prize.

Generate retailer excitement 

Demonstrate to the retailer not only that your innovation can be big, but that you will make it big. Tailored support and spend can help here, but it’s not the only lever.