NielsenIQ: Innovation Is Key to Unlocking Sustainable Growth Among Asia Pacific’s FMCG Brands

• Brands delivering strong products can see a significant upside, with an average year 1 volume increase of 30% compared to their less successful counterparts

• NielsenIQ BASES leverages neuroscience and AI to provide deeper insights into consumer behavior, enabling brands to make data-driven decisions.

While price hikes fueled fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sales growth in Asia Pacific in the past years, the recent softening of price increases presents a golden opportunity for manufacturers to stimulate organic volume growth. NielsenIQ (NIQ), the world’s leading consumer intelligence company, identifies innovation as a key catalyst for achieving this goal. According to an analysis by NIQ BASES, the innovation measurement arm of the company, brands with strong innovations witness on average year 1 volume increase of 30%, outperforming their less innovative competitors, which highlights the importance of innovations in driving business success.

“Consumers often don’t articulate their true feelings or intentions, sometimes they are not even aware of it themselves. Traditional methods can fall short in capturing the nuances of consumer behavior”

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“To achieve maximum success, brands must focus on a holistic approach that combines product innovation with strategic marketing. By developing exceptional products and executing effective campaigns, brands can attract new customers, create new usage occasions, justify premium pricing, and boost ad-driven sales by up to 20%. This powerful combination is essential for driving sustainable growth and staying ahead of the competition,” states Terence Colle, Managing Director of NIQ Strategic Analytics & Insights for Asia Pacific.

Meet the unmet innovation needs of consumers

According to an NIQ analysis, out of 218,174 brands in Asia Pacific, only 3,857 grew more than 10% in volume and had at least 1% share in 2023. Innovating to address key concerns across demographics and generations is a way to drive more volume growth for your brand.

An NIQ BASES survey revealed that 58% of APAC consumers claim to try new products before other people do. Some of the ways for brands to drive growth, as indicated by the survey, is to expand to adjacent categories and markets, bring out of home experiences in-home, make the experience more convenient and fun, target new health needs of the discerning consumer, innovate with plant-based products and cater for the demand for natural/ vegan options.

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For innovations to succeed, they need to be rooted in consumer needs. Diving deeper into the unmet needs of consumers across some categories, NIQ found that consumers have a desire for packaged food items to be healthier, while they want dairy and alcohol brands to do more on flavors, and from beverage brands, consumers want more in terms of lower sugar and improved gut health. While the desire to not have harmful chemicals in beauty and personal care products is a given, consumers want manufacturers to take more action in this regard. Personalization is a new attribute that is becoming increasingly important for the beauty category. At the same time, from household care brands, consumers want safety of use with no harsh chemicals, and they want more efficacy from these brands.

Consumers have different reasons to choose different products. Brands that want to succeed need to innovate to address these varying consumer needs and demands.

Technology transforming the innovation landscape

At the heart of the journey towards innovation lies a deep and comprehensive understanding of consumer behavior. To achieve this, brands must go beyond traditional methods. Neuro research, which utilizes advanced technology to directly measure brain responses, offers a more accurate and unbiased understanding of consumer preferences, eliminating the filters and biases that can often impact consumer responses.

“Consumers often don’t articulate their true feelings or intentions, sometimes they are not even aware of it themselves. Traditional methods can fall short in capturing the nuances of consumer behavior,” says Colle. “At NIQ, we believe in going beyond the surface to uncover the deeper truths that drive consumer decisions with our neuro solution.”

NIQ BASES is at the forefront of neuro research with its pioneering solutions that measures human truths in real-time, delivering the deepest, most actionable insights. From assessing your pack with neuro-powered insights to driving strong ad creatives that are 10-14X more likely to directly drive sales impact, neuro can show the way. NIQ’s neuro tools can capture 500 data points every second to uncover implicit non-conscious emotional responses and brand memory structures, also helping optimize ad creatives to deliver a 20% lift in ad-driven sales.

Cutting-edge technologies, like predictive AI models and neuro marketing tools, are revolutionizing the way companies are innovating and bringing new products to market. Coupled with foundational research and proven NIQ BASES expertise for pathbreaking innovations, the possibilities are immense for manufacturers who want to build profitable brands and drive value for the end consumer.