How to successfully land seasonal innovation

Every new season brings new seasonal products. And if done correctly, seasonal innovation can play a crucial role in helping a brand stay relevant and competitive. 

However, the path to successful seasonal innovation is often littered with challenges. It requires keen market insights, agile operations and creative thinking to launch products that resonate with the seasonal spirit.

Despite these hurdles, the rewards of seasonal innovation are significant. Over the years we’ve done a lot of research on seasonal innovation and a number of similar themes kept emerging. 

In this article, we’ll share our tips on how to create successful innovation based on all we’ve learned from our research. Read on to get the highlights.

Before we dive in, here’s a quick introduction on how we define success. 

New products need to accomplish two key things: 

1. Entice consumers enough to want to try them 

2. Stand out from the competition and disrupt consumers’ purchase habits

Because limited-edition innovation isn’t around for long, it needs to have maximum impact in that short time. Being different and having a level of advantage over others in the market is important, but driving a decent level of trial should be the priority for brands.

With that in mind, we focus on two key metrics to determine success: Trial Potential and Breakthrough Potential. While Trial Potential is based on the product’s purchase likelihood, Breakthrough Potential is defined by how different and superior the product is perceived to be vs. what’s already available in the market.  

We plot these scores on a classification grid to forecast a product’s performance in market and advise on the best launch strategy.

Now let's get into it.

Brands that take an existing product that consumers already love and make a seasonally relevant change to its color, shape or packaging tend to see the best results. 

Think Reese’s Peanut Butter Pumpkins for Halloween, Hershey’s Kisses Santa Hats for Christmas, M&M’s pastel colored eggs for Easter.

This approach leverages the familiarity and popularity of your existing products while adding a fresh, timely twist that excites consumers. It also allows you to capitalize on established brand credentials and trust, reducing the risks associated with launching entirely new products. 

As you can see in the chart below, the “enhanced core products” we analyzed across seasons tend to fall in the “short-term trial” quadrant of our chart — which is exactly what we want to see from a limited-time product. These products have high trial potential. They may not always be particularly breakthrough ideas, but they do make it into consumers’ shopping carts.

Reese’s has seen particular success with this approach. Across all seasons, Reese’s seasonal shapes were top-performing products. They maintained the formula of the much-loved cups, honoring that “less is more” approach.

So when running your own research, analyze the consumer feedback from your previous seasonal products to understand which elements are the most appealing and why to understand which seasonal tweaks fit with your own existing products.

If it doesn’t make sense for your brand to tie into a specific season, don’t force it. Your brand should maintain true category relevance for seasonal innovation to be effective. 

Some categories or brands have a greater connection to particular seasons. For example, we’ve seen that chocolate brands have an advantage when credibly launching a Halloween, Christmas or Easter product. But categories like cereals and soft drinks aren’t easily viewed as a seasonal treat consumers enjoy.

That’s why it’s so important to check in with consumers to make sure they think your concept fits with your brand and makes sense in the category. By doing so, you maintain brand integrity and strengthen your connection with your audience.

If you’re creating a limited-time innovation for what you know is likely a narrow audience (like those who enjoy black licorice flavors), you might want to reconsider.

It’s usually best to appeal to a broad audience for seasonal innovation. These products are only available for one season, so you want to sell as much as possible to recoup your investment. And if it only appeals to a small group, you’re limiting your ability to do that.

That means doing your research to understand what colors, flavors, etc. appeal to the largest group of people — as you can see in this winter flavor analysis we did. Hot cocoa emerged as almost universally liked, while gingerbread was more polarizing.

It’s worth it to do your research to understand what flavors consumers like — and which flavors they think fit with your brand — to make sure you’re reaching a broad group.

By prioritizing consumer input, you build stronger connections with your consumers and enhance the overall effectiveness of your seasonal product strategy.

Embracing seasonal innovation is a powerful strategy for driving short-term sales. 

To maximize its potential, get feedback from consumers to ensure offerings align with their desires, make sure what you’re creating fits your brand and consider making minor changes to core products for a fresh twist — remembering that less is more. But be cautious of polarizing flavors or niche products that might alienate a wider audience. 

By making sure your new product introductions are relevant for both your consumers and your brand, you can drive trial and brand penetration. 

If you’re looking to research your innovations early and often, optimize faster, validate better and leverage systematic learnings, Zappi’s Innovation Solutions creates a game-changing system that helps you create more effective innovation.