Nielsen navigating new package design territory

Nielsen knows what makes brand marketing effective and now the company is applying its consumer communications expertise to the world of packaging.

Nielsen Design Navigator is the name of a new creative enablement tool the company contends helps marketers improve the in-market effectiveness of package design.

Nielsen is known as a leader in marketing effectiveness, innovation forecasting and in-market success but the introduction of the Design Navigator is new territory. Why the company has made the move is understandable.

According to industry data cited by Nielsen, as much as 90% of new package designs fail to deliver a measurable sales increase – and 50% of in-market designs actually hurt brand equity.

“Design is one of the most underleveraged marketing tools because of the uncertainty built into the process and absence of metrics to track results,” said Andrew Somosi, executive vice president of product leadership at Nielsen. “Solutions such as Nielsen Design Navigator have the power to change the design packaging game by empowering CMOs to view their package design work like they do advertising or social media – as a marketing investment with a clear and measurable financial return.”

Nielsen’s Design Navigator draws on patented technologies developed by recently acquired Affinnova to solve the central issues of the current design process. It does that by enabling brands and designers to explore a much broader range of early stage design concepts and objectively asses them based on visual stand out, consumer preference and brand equity.

These consumer-driven analytics provide unprecedented clarity for marketers, helping them identify design routes that will have the largest brand and financial impact, according to Nielsen. The bottom line for brand marketers and designers is they can more reliably and consistently launch more effective package designs for new products or re-launched brands.

The launch of Nielsen Design Navigator was announced at Nielsen’s annual Consumer 360 Conference which was recently held in Washington D.C.