Walgreens' Colin Watts serves as jury chair at 2010 Product of the Year USA Awards

NEW YORK Walgreens VP and chief innovation officer Colin Watts was in Manhattan Tuesday evening to address attendees of the 2010 Product of the Year USA Awards held here at the Edison Ballroom.

Watts served as the jury chair for this year's awards. Watts, who joined Walgreens in 2008, is a healthcare and consumer packaged goods veteran who last served as VP and general manager of the U.S. business of Campbell Soup. Before that, he was president of Johnson & Johnson's McNeil Consumer Healthcare Worldwide business.

The 14 winners in this second annual Product of the Year USA competition are:

• Hair Care: Pantene Nature Fusion (Procter & Gamble)
• Hair Styling: Clairol Perfect 10 (Procter & Gamble)
• Personal Care: Secret Clinical Strength (Procter & Gamble)
• Laundry Products: Tide Stain Release (Procter & Gamble)
• Carpet Care:  Resolve Deep Clean Powder (Reckitt Benckiser)
• Household Products: Glade Sense & Spray (S.C. Johnson)
• Home Cleaning Products:  Pledge Multisurface (S.C. Johnson)
• Coffee Systems: Nescafe Dolce Gusto (Nestle)
• Beverage: Sprite Green (Coca-Cola)
• Oral Care: Colgate Wisp (Colgate-Palmolive)
• Personal Hygiene: Afrin PureSea (Schering-Plough)
• Pet Food: Cesar Treats (MARS Petcare)
• Children's Products: Springfree Trampoline (Springfree Trampoline)
• Value Products: Moser Roth Chocolate (Aldi, Inc.)

The POY is the only consumer product award that rewards innovation and is voted on by consumers. Established more than 20 years ago in France, the Product of the Year currently operates in 28 countries with the same purpose: Guide consumers to the best products in the market and reward manufacturers for quality and innovation.

Backed by the votes of 100,000 consumers, the red POY seal serves as a shortcut for shoppers; and for manufacturers, the award is a powerful marketing message that has been shown to increase retail distribution and sales by an average of 10% to 15%.

POY accepts entries each year from consumer packaged goods that demonstrate innovation and were launched within the previous year. The products are then placed into specific categories, such as food or personal care, with a product then being chosen as a winner in its category through a nationally representative research study administered by TNS. Winners able to use the POY seal for marketing initiatives.