only 0.14 of all fmcg launches, 16,914 to be precise, from 2012 as evaluated by nielsen are considered breakthrough innovations in the research firm&39s report. the glib often bandied about statistic of about how 80 of product launches fail now seems like the overstatement of the century. that&39s just 23 launches culled from more than 80 fmcg categories including food, personal culled from more than 80 fmcg categories including food, personal care, household care, overthecounter products and soft drinks. it&39s a wretched number of drinks. it&39s a wretched number of course. but we aren&39t as interested in course. but we aren&39t as interested in the twenty something success stories as we are in the 16,891 launches that got slapped with a scarlet f. why did 99.9 of these fmcg innovations crash and burnnow, consider how fashionable it is for most marketers, large and medium, to tell reporters that they are big and established businesses with a startup attitude, that&39s usually characterised by an inventive spirit a philosophy that hinges on creating value and growth through innovation. it&39s in the dna, we&39re told. and that&39s all well and wonderful in prose, and we don&39t deny the honesty in their intention, but it doesn&39t quite seem to work in real life. because when it comes to innovations in the fmcg space, many marketers are responsible for plenty of fundamental transgressions that their startup pals would poohpooh.mistake 1 competition not consumers drive innovationsjust like the gag reflex there&39s the innovate reflex. marketers experience innovation spasms typically brought on by an acute case of keeping up with the joneses instead of the primary stakeholder who are regular folk like us. says brand consultant harish bijoor, "marketers who are normally besotted with the product they have on hand, suddenly jump out of the box when prompted by competition. when competition nudges in and edges out your usp, the marketer gets into overdrive mode to think new." in 8 out of 10 cases, competitive forces drive innovations in fmcg. but globally, the best innovations are drive innovations in fmcg. but globally, the best innovations are ones that are consumer driven. based on real ones that are consumer driven. based on real needs, they offer solutions and improve the overall experience. if surf carried on thinking other detergents are the competition, it would innovate less. when the hul brand started thinking of water and its quantum of use for washing as its competition, it moved ahead. and the "do bucket paani bachana hai" campaign, a marketing innovation of sorts, struck home. however, "the trend in india of late is that consumers take a backseat," says prof. prashant mishra of iim kolkata. "this in spite of a lot of talk about consumer driven innovation when it&39s in fact driven internally or by competition. india is one of the fastest growing fmcg markets compared to similar ones in asia pacific or australasia but many of the innovations are either focused on trying to bring in a vfm value for money offering or line extensions." which brings us to...mistake 2 the "innovation workshop" systemfor starters, innovation itself is not just an objective to be ticked off the todo list after an exclusive annual workshop on an offsite location preferably with a private beach where environmental conditions are conducive to creative contemplation. innovation is an all inclusive, constant, often arduous process. at kellogg india, for instance, every work week&39s kicked off with monday breakfast meetings where employees come together to bounce off and thrash out new ideas and possibilities after experiencing firsthand what consumers are saying about and doing with their food. cereal innovators, pardon the pun, are not fashioned overnight. of course, one way to innovate is to wait for the eureka moment, till the cows come home to moo. but, says harpreet singh tibb, marketing director, kellogg india, you&39re better off treating it as an alwayson approach. "the innovation mindset comes from multiple experiences and exposures to all data sources and immersing yourself in those insights." or a large bowl of simply pongal oats. india is the only kellogg market to have a growing portfolio of savoury breakfast foods.mistake 3 the "i know it all" syndromemarketing is afflicted by what santosh desai, ceo, future brands calls a crippling sense of foreknowledge. he says, "the world has been calls a crippling sense of categories and labels have been assigned. in toothpastes there were and maybe still are absurd categories like popular, semi popular, semipremium etc. these are ways of describing the market and consumer that are frozen in time and treated as inviolable. but to the consumer, they are becoming increasingly irrelevant." profit, leadership and market share will inevitably follow if the objective of the innovation is to be "relevant to unarticulated, and at times even unimagined consumer needs" says bijoor. which requires the ability to sift through mountains of data, big and small to pinpoint the brand&39s place in the consumer&39s life. the first step according to desai is to stop applying hard labels. "don&39t refer to your consumers as things like &39the reluctant modernist.&39 don&39t give concrete names that you get trapped by." consumer led innovation does exist but it calls for two abilities &mdash sensing the mechanism to learn from what you see as well as the capability to translate it into something worthwhile. "it&39s rare for both of these to exist together," desai admits.mistake 4 a narrow category viewmaking these mistakes deny innovations what they need most a raison d&39etre in consumers&39 lives, relevance and longevity. what you will get are cosmetic not breakthrough innovations. says desai, "there&39s a lot of varianting and incremental innovation but when it comes to new product ideas, you struggle a little. there are some spaces where it&39s more visible like food and beverage. barring a new entry like paper boat, beverages have been controlled by very few companies in very limited ways. there are scale issues for them as well and their internal economics does not allow them to service a market that&39s clearly large and developing a new palette." the launch of fair & handsome, a fairness cream for men, is often cited as a breakthrough product launch that shrewdly grabbed preexisting opportunity everyone seemed to have missed. the insight men use fairness creams, albeit in a shroud of secrecy, however the vial always belongs to the mother, wife or sister. but that is not all the personal care category is missing if one bothers to look. says mishra, "given a large population and a growing awareness about personal hygiene, sanitary napkins ought to catch the imagination of the masses. the industry needs to find a more economical product so adoption can happen at a large scale. they are probably happy with the growth they have, but the base at which they are growing vis a vis the indian population proves they&39ve still got only the middle class and urban set and are not mass." any takersdesai also points a finger at foods, where packaged and processed food brands do not reflect people&39s adventurous eating patterns outside of home. "food companies know that people are looking for new tastes. but to put that into a new format, a snack that&39s tasty at x price point, and to do that from scratch, and meeting health standards requires the convergence of a whole lot of capabilities around a single effort. it&39s a longer term cycle than current businesses which are oriented quarterly and at best annually."mistake 5 thinking shortterm loss and gainstoday, indian companies in the fmcg space lack the patience and financial appetite to see innovations through their natural lifecycle. by their very nature innovations aren&39t just flashes of brilliance, unless of course it is their intended purpose to provide a burst of sales, visibility and buzz the limited period strategy can give brand traction but does very little for longterm sustainability, the experts warn. the bigger hurdle, however, is to get adequate resource allocation to r&d and innovation to begin with. "everyone loves short term numbers but there has to be somebody thinking about a 5,10 or 15 year window and putting in place a mechanism. it&39s more like a long haul test versus an ipl game. on the one hand, life cycles are shorter and on the other consumers are more fickle. too much competition is putting margins under pressure and all combine to form a vicious circle. large innovations need a reasonable time to market and most large firms are not allowed that," says mishra.now, of course, large organizations in leadership positions have more to lose so they can&39t go around putting money behind every hair brained scheme.innovations are the prerogative of challenger brands. innovations are the prerogative of challenger brands. having said that, think of the greatest marketing innovation of this century &mdash the ipl. the indian premier league, which is the offspring of cricket among the leading obsessions of the country and reality tv, is a fine example of a breakthrough innovation, and even if you are a test cricket or a soccer fan that&39s damn hard to deny. says suman srivastava, founder, marketing unplugged and chief strategy officer, fcb ulka, "all the greatest innovations are cross breeds which create new categories where none existed before." 
