Da Vinci code paints a picture of NPD in food and drink

Many new products are unsuccessful because manufacturers are failing to keep tabs on them after they have launched, according to a market analyst.

"There is a belief that you can launch a product and wait for the first six months to see what happens, but there's lots that can be done in this time," says IRI industry insight director Tim Eales. He explains that if a consumer does not enjoy a product the first time they try it, they are far less likely to make a second purchase. "The sooner you make the changes needed, not necessarily to the product itself, but to the range available, the price, or the advertising, the more product you will sell because there will still be lots of consumers who have yet to try the product.

"There have been horror stories in the past where a cheese was launched and was unbelievably successful, so much so that it sold out in the first two months," says Eales. But because the manufacturer didn't realise the situation until too late, it had to rush production to keep up with demand and the brand was killed by inconsistent product quality, he says. "I'd like to think that something could have been done about it, if the signs had been spotted earlier."

IRI uses its Da Vinci sales rate index to monitor how well new products are selling. "We can follow the launch of a product in the first month. If sales are too low, then we can analyse the marketing activity and see if there are any flaws," says Eales.

One of the biggest difficulties when analysing new products is knowing how to compare them to one another. "With Da Vinci, we can look at different products within a new brand range relative to the shops where it is on sale and compare that sales rate with the average sales rate of an item in that category at that point in time - the benchmark is always changing." The trick is to find out how successful the product is relatively, not in terms of profit, but in terms of exciting people, he says.