Taking a Bite Out of the Snack Food Marketing with Innovation Testing
Sweet and salty; baked, fried and popped; fresh and frozen – there’s a seemingly endless supply of snacks on the market. And while the snack aisles are largely dominated by a few key players, it doesn’t stop newcomers from bringing exciting innovations to the forefront. Today’s start up could be tomorrow’s leader – just look at Kind. Founded in 2004, the company earned $1 million in sales in its first year and now brings in about $1.5 billion annually.
What’s the secret recipe behind a successful snack? First, let’s take a closer look at the snack industry’s impact, and then dive into how brands can take a bit out of market share.
Snacking is a Big Dill
From Ruffles Spicy Dill Pickle and Doritos Blazin’ Buffalo and Ranch chips to Cheetos popcorn, snack brands are no strangers to rolling out new flavors and SKUs. Frito Lay’s fan-favorite “Do Us a Flavor” campaign even crowdsourced new chip concepts from consumers, with the winners determined by a public vote.
Mondelez’s 2024 State of Snacking™ report found that 64% of consumers regularly snack to connect with others. Other reasons for snacking included to boost their mood, reward oneself and relax. Mondelez is an innovation powerhouse. During her Uncensored CMO podcast appearance, Eugenia Zalis, Global Head of Marketing and Brand at OREO, highlighted the culture of innovation at the brand, noting that limited-edition collaborations are strategically leveraged to deliver flavors consumers will love. She also noted that different innovations serve different purposes, like reaching new consumers or new channels or delivering fun.
“We are very clear on the role of different innovations for the brand. So we don’t treat an innovation like OREO cakes in the same way that we treat the limited-edition OREO Coca-Cola.”
Eugenia Zalis
Global Head of Marketing and Brand, OREO
It’s no wonder the snack industry brings in sales of tens of billions annually. Even capturing a small segment of this can drive immense growth.
Snacking is so popular that even brands that don’t yet have a foothold in the snack aisle recognize its commercial potential. Mergers and acquisitions can help companies get in the snacking game. It’s a move that both Campbell Soup Company and The Hershey Company made in recent years when they purchased Snyder’s-Lance and Amplify Snack Brands respectively. The deal with Amplify, the maker of SkinnyPop, was worth $1.6 billion.
It’s clear snacking is here to stay. But at the same time, there’s increasing competition among established and emerging snack brands. In grocery stores, convenience stores and wholesale clubs, there’s limited space in the snack aisles. And as Ken Muench, CMO of Yum! Brands, noted on the Uncensored CMO, successful innovation requires a delicate balance.
“You can go too far, too easily, too quickly. And when you go to far, you lose it. Or you can go not far enough and it’s not interesting. It’s a constant balance.”
Ken Muench
CMO, Yum! Brands
Once a product manages to make it from an idea to a physical offering on the shelf, it needs to grab consumers’ attention quickly and repeatedly.So, what’s the best strategy for creating the next great snack?
Predicting Snacks’ In-market Success
deas testing is one approach that enables brands to predict the in-market sales potential of their snack products. In a crowded category, where everything from flavor and ingredients to packaging to reputation has an impact on buyers, ideas testing can give product development teams and marketers the confidence that an idea is worth launching.
By collecting consumer insights, brands can pinpoint where they might be able to break through with something different to get ahead of competitors and create a new category within a category. As Allison Ellsworth, founder of Poppi, discussed on Uncensored CMO, new non-traditional flavor combinations have proven to be a success. This reinforces the important role of testing.
“We have the traditional soda flavors – we have the root beer, cola, Doc Pop. But our #1 selling SKU is our strawberry lemon. We are defining a new category for the next generation of soda drinks. And modern soda can be a strawberry lemon Poppi.”
Allison Ellsworth
Founder, Poppi
System1’s Test Your Innovation platform helps brands understand how real consumers feel about new products. We use a variety of tools and metrics to analyze consumer sentiment:
Emotional Pull:Using our FaceTrace® tool, we measure the emotional resonance of each idea, capturing how effectively it connects with consumers on a personal and emotional level.
Share Trading:We ask consumers whether they’d metaphorically “buy” or “sell” each idea, offering clear insights into their enthusiasm for each and how well it aligns with their preferences.
Decision Speed:By tracking how quickly consumers engage with each idea, we uncover the immediacy of their reactions. Faster responses indicated genuine enthusiasm, while slower ones point to hesitation or uncertainty.
Reasons for Emotion:We gather key consumer verbatims, revealing why they like or dislike each idea.
Create with Confidence
With a database of over 54,000 innovations to benchmark against, Test Your Innovation empowers brands to Create with Confidence and launch new innovations. So, which idea will be your next star? Use Test Your Innovation to predict your winner from an early stage and finetune it throughout the innovation process. We can’t wait to help you bring it to market!
