- Alex Palmer

Consumers are eager for innovation when comes to packaged goods, household and personal products, per a new study from Ipsos Marketing, Consumer Goods.

Eighty-nine percent of consumers said they would be interested in trying new food products at the grocery store. Eighty-six percent showed interest in new household products followed by 81 percent looking for new personal products. Ipsos polled 1,000 global consumers late last year.

This shows how much opportunity there is for manufacturers to offer consumers something fresh, said Lauren Demar, CEO of Ipsos Marketing, Global Consumer Goods Sector, in a statement. “A critical step in the new product development process is communicating to consumers when new products become available and what differentiates them from products currently on the market. This is an opportunity waiting to be taken.”

Currently consumers rank food and beverage, personal and household products low on the list of innovative products.

When asked which product categories are most likely to introduce services and products that are new and different from what is currently available, 34 percent of respondents indicated household products, 28 percent included personal products and only 26 percent indicated food and beverage. Only financial institutions ranked lower (18 percent).

Computer equipment was considered most innovative, per 60 percent of respondents. Electronic media (58 percent), cameras and video equipment (54 percent) also ranked highly.

"It's not surprising that consumer packaged goods would not rank as high as more obvious technological products," said Demar. “What is interesting is that consumer packaged goods are viewed to be innovative by almost one-third of global consumers—not bad for an industry that, generally speaking, has been unfairly tagged as sluggish on the innovation front.”


Nielsen Business Media