Southeast Asia – November 9, 2023 – Today, NielsenIQ released its highly-anticipated 2023 BASES Breakthrough Innovation Awards for brands in South East Asia. The awards recognize successful product launches across all strategies, ranging from launches that managed to disrupt their categories and grow their brands, to targeted plays that created to delight a specific target.  

This year, the BASES Breakthrough Innovation Award named 19 winners among this year’s innovative brands in Southeast Asia that have transformed their categories. It also acknowledged 8 Wavemakers, products that show great potential for future success.   

The recipients of this year’s South East Asia Breakthrough Innovation Awards have made remarkable strides across diverse product categories. In 2023, 90% of Southeast Asia consumers said they are likely to buy new products. Brands that focused on innovation in 2022 were 1.8% more likely to grow overall sales in 2023. This year’s Southeast Asia winners had products that delighted buyers and addressed their unique needs. Consumers in Southeast Asia were particularly health conscious with around half of consumers seeking out health benefits in their purchases. Southeast Asian buyers were also seeking more callouts of beneficial ingredients in non-food categories.  

This year’s Breakthrough Innovation winners have successfully navigated through a persistently precarious landscape, marked by the enduring impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions, and extraordinary inflationary constraints. 

“We want to debunk the myth that ‘95% of all new products fail.’ From our annual Breakthrough Innovation Report, we have shown how brands from different categories, spaces, price points, and strategies have succeeded. While there’s no one-size-fits-all template to follow, the recipe of having a good idea and good product supported by purposeful activation is a recurring theme by our winners. We hope to provide inspiration to our manufacturers with these diverse stories, seeing how these innovations have also overcome the pandemic and recent economic pressures that we are all experiencing,” commented Ruchi Ballal, BASES Southeast Asia Lead. 

2023 Breakthrough Innovation winners have successfully navigated through a persistently precarious landscape, marked by the enduring impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions and extraordinary inflationary constraints.  

The 2023 SE Asia Breakthrough Innovation Award Winners are: 

• Betagen Kombucha  
• Bifesta Micellar Water Makeup Remover Serum   
• Birdy® Black Zero  

• Cloud 9 Gold  
• Double Dragon Instant Vermicelli, Boat Noodle Flavor  
• Edelweiss Wheat Beer  
• Eden Cream Cheese  
• Gatorade No Sugar  

• Great Taste Supreme  
• Hydro Coco Vita-D  
• Kahf Face Scrub  
• Lemon-Dou  
• Milo Iced Energy  

• Nescafé Triple Espresso  
• Nivea Extra Bright 10 Super Vitamins & Skin Foods Serum   
• Nutella Biscuit  
• Royale by SoKlin Sweet Floral and Royale by SoKlin Sunny Day  
• Selecta Boom Boom!  

• Tang Fruit & Veg 

The 2023 Southeast Asia Breakthrough Innovation Award Wavemakers are: 

• CloseUp Complete Fresh Protection Multivitamin Toothpaste  
• Cornetto Hershey’s   
• Ensure Gold HMB Liquid Coffee  

• Kit Kat Chunky Lotus   
• Skippy Creamy Zero Salt Zero Sugar Added  
• Top Avocado Coffee  
• Wall’s Bites Time!  
• Wall’s Fruity Max 

For over a decade, BASES has identified more than 700 products from around the globe as Breakthrough Innovations. These innovations addressed key consumer needs and delivered stand-out experiences that redefined their categories. This, in turn, has resulted in incredible outcomes.  

For more information about this year’s Breakthrough Innovations winners and to learn from their successes, please visit the Breakthrough Innovation website. 

About the Breakthrough Innovation report

The 2023 Breakthrough Innovation Awards has evaluated thousands of new products with the goal to acknowledge and reward those that have achieved the pinnacle of success. The brands included in this year’s winners represent a wide array of products that have excelled in their respective categories. Winners of the Breakthrough Innovation Awards are the products that delight customers, gain distribution, stay on-shelf, and drive results for their parent companies. Learn more about how BASES supports innovation and measures success on our Breakthrough Innovation website. 

About NielsenIQ

NIQ is the world’s leading consumer intelligence company, delivering the most complete understanding of consumer buying behavior and revealing new pathways to growth. In 2023, NIQ combined with GfK, bringing together the two industry leaders with unparalleled global reach. With a holistic retail read and the most comprehensive consumer insights—delivered with advanced analytics through state-of-the-art platforms—NIQ delivers the Full View™.

NIQ, is an Advent International portfolio company with operations in 100+ markets, covering more than 90% of the world’s population. For more information, visit NIQ.com.

Media Relations:

Anupriya Deepak
PR & Media Strategist
anupriya.deepak@nielseniq.com