DSN webinar with SPINS, ClearCut Analytics examines ominchannel brand success strategies

How can companies use data and analytics to offer the most in-demand and cutting-edge products  in a challenging retail environment? That was the focus of a webinar held Wednesday featuring experts from ClearCut Analytics and Spins, hosted by Drug Store News. 

Daniel Harari, head of business development of ClearCut Analytics and Michael Friedman, sales director of SPINS aso examined why access to holistic market measurement is imperative for successful CPG innovation.

Throughout the webinar, the experts shared what datasets brands should turn to for supporting product development efforts and why access to holistic market measurement is imperative for successful CPG innovation.

The full webinar, "Innovate Like a Trendsetter With Holistic Market Measurement,” is available on-demand here.

Friedman noted that health-and-wellnes products represent the lion's share of growth drivers in CPG, with particular attention from consumers paid to plant-based, vegan, or free range products. 

“Of new brands entering the marketplace, the majority are coming from the health-and-wellness sector. Health and wellness items, while small, are currently driving growth in the marketplace as a result of lifestyle and diet needs that consumers are looking for,” Friedman added.

Within this growth, and for the industry more broadly, Harari noted that e-commerce — in particular Amazon — represents a critical bellwether when it comes to hot items. 

[Read more: Voices of the Industry: How the pandemic has changed retail] 

“It allows us to see legacy and traditional brands, as well as newer digital, Amazon brands that have become leaders in a lot of categories they play in," he said, noting that Amazon alone makes 70% of all sales in CPG. "In e-commerce it’s a massive data set. Amazon is also a crystal ball of what’s next for CPG. By pinpointing high growth categories we can optimize product development of those products by understanding the attributes that consumers are seeking.”

Harari pointed out that Amazon is an incubator for testing new products. "With online, you don’t have barriers to entry. You can come out with new products, and immediately off the production line, you can ship and have them online for sale,” he said, noting that consumers have more of an appetite for trying new products online.

The webinar also addressed the biggest challenges brands face when launching new innovations.

Friedman said it's important to ask, what is it about your brand that will make it unique? “Understanding your product is wonderful quality, but what are consumers looking for? There are a lot of dollars spent in R&D, so you want to mitigate risk, and incorporate data from attributes and understand what is happening in the market.”

Harari added, “When a brand is launching a new product you are making a prediction into what consumers may want. The more information you have when you make a prediction, more likely you are to be right. Take data, that’s your information. It will help you predict, not with 100% accuracy, but it will help you have a higher likelihood of succeeding. If enough new products are successful, you have a nice inroad.”