Innovation spotlight: MoonBite Minis

Welcome to Innovation Spotlight! Each month we’ll spotlight a brand that’s capitalizing on a current consumer trend with a new product innovation.

This month we tried something new. We used Zappi AI Concept Creation Agents to create our own Halloween treat based on what we've learned about seasonal innovation. Read on to get our analysis of the product's in-market potential, the audiences it appeals to, as well as what you can learn from it to innovate smarter.

MoonBite Minis are health-conscious festive treats, perfect for trick-or-treating festivities and designed for younger adults who want to indulge without the guilt of unhealthy eating. 

These treats use all natural ingredients and infuse them into luxurious mini chocolates, in whimsical Halloween shapes such as ghosts, pumpkins and bats. 

Packed in individually wrapped, Halloween-inspired packages, each bite delivers exquisite taste, healthful benefits and a spooky thrill.

Product benefits

Mini size, big delight  MoonBite Minis offer portion-controlled indulgence in the forms of festive shapes, a fun and delicious way to satisfy candy cravings without overeating.

Unravel the flavor  Each mini Halloween-themed treat is bursting with unique flavors like Pumpkin Spice Dark Chocolate, Spooky Sour Cherry, Tangy Orange Blast and Exotic Matcha Explosion.

Festive fun dimension  The individually wrapped mini Halloween shapes and designs add a dimension of fun and anticipation to the trick-or-treat experience, while advocating for a healthier festive celebration.

Why is it interesting? 

Zappi’s AI Concept Creation Agents utilize cutting-edge language models (LLMs) to help brands quickly create, iterate and optimize product ideas based on real consumer data and brand-specific insights. They reduce the concept development timeline from weeks or months to mere hours, enabling brands to quickly deliver unique, data-backed ideas that resonate with consumers.

This is particularly interesting because the MoonBite Minis concept was fully AI-generated, using Zappi’s AI Concept Creation Agents and consumer data from testing our seasonal product innovations. We started with prompts such as concept objective, category and target audience, and the concept description and visual was created by the agents using insights on the category, audience and seasonal learnings in just four minutes. Typically seasonal innovations are product variations that are created by an existing brand. However, despite being a new AI-generated brand, it performs well.

You can learn more about the AI Marketing Agents tool and the process in the video below:

1. Seasonal cues continue to resonate  well with people. In this case the shapes, colors, packaging and flavors all reflect Halloween and are well liked. The Zappi Concept Creation Agents (specifically our Insights Agent) used our past data on seasonal products to help us automatically infuse these learnings into the newly created concept. Using these types of learnings can have a big impact on success. 

2. Tap into consumer trends for success. MoonBite Minis tapped into the prominent health and wellness trend with portion controlled sizes that include natural ingredients. While the health trend started some years ago, it is still highly relevant. The Zappi Concept Creation Agent (our Trends Agent) helped us source information on key consumer trends and infuse it into the concept — which clearly paid off.

3. AI concept generation works. AI is great in generating highly distinctive ideas. In our previous testing, 90% of Zappi AI-generated concepts scored significantly above the norm on Distinctiveness and MoonBites Mini were no exception. Using AI can help you push the boundaries of your ideation process and of human creativity.

What’s the potential?

MoonBite Minis have high breakthrough potential, scoring in the top 20% of all food innovations tested in the US and performing in line with the average food innovation on trial potential. Given that this is a new brand that does not benefit from an existing brand equity, these results are particularly encouraging.

The innovation sits in the ‘seed and grow’ section of our concept potential assessment framework. This means this Halloween candy is highly unique and distinctive and therefore able to stand out in the market. It also has good trial potential considering it is a new product that doesn’t have the benefit of an existing parent brand.

The strong performance of MoonBite Minis is not surprising as the concept uses many of the seasonal best practices for innovation, most notably:

• A highly relevant category: chocolate

• Seasonal colored packaging: orange, purple, green

• Seasonal shapes: ghosts, pumpkins and bats 

• Appetizing Halloween-themed flavors: pumpkin spice dark chocolate, spooky sour cherry, tangy orange blast and exotic matcha explosion

• Broad appeal: appeals to a fairly broad consumer base of category buyers

Sixty-one percent of people say they would likely buy MoonBite Minis if available at a reasonable price, which is in line with US food innovations (purchase likelihood T2B: 61% vs. 60% norm). Positively, the new chocolates have a fairly broad appeal which is particularly important for a seasonal innovation that has a shorter selling season to maximize ROI. 

MoonBite Minis are particularly appealing to adults under 45 (T2B purchase likelihood: 70%) and frequent buyers who buy chocolate at least once a week (T2B purchase likelihood: 80%) but also generate some interest among more occasional chocolate buyers, or those who buy chocolate once every 2-3 months (T2B purchase likelihood: 55%).

Trial potential is also good among “early adopters” (85% vs 88% US norm for early adopters and above the average category benchmark), which is important because they tend to contribute disproportionately to new product sales, especially during the earliest months.

Consumers will buy the new chocolates in addition to what they typically buy (66% vs 63% norm) which makes sense given they are seasonal chocolates for Halloween and offer unique flavors and a healthier, more natural choice. This also means that if you were to introduce such seasonal innovation, it would be likely incremental to the rest of your portfolio. In fact, MoonBite Minis achieve a high commitment rate with 48% of people saying they would postpone buying or go to another store if their store ran out of the brand (vs. 41% norm).

Good trial potential for MoonBite Minis further corroborates the power of using Zappi’s AI Concept Creation Agents to create strong concepts quickly and effectively. This shines through in people’s reactions. They find MoonBite Minis’ festive Halloween packaging, fun ghost, pumpkins and bat shapes, unique Halloween flavors (e.g. Spooky Sour Cherry) and the fact that they’re a healthier option (portion-controlled, natural ingredients that advocate for a healthier treat) to be relevant and credible, which all contribute to good potential for the new brand.

A note on breakthrough potential

When it comes to breakthrough potential, we look at two key measures to determine this:

1. How different (distinctive) a product is

2. How superior (advantage) a product is vs what’s already available in market

MoonBite Minis are very distinctive, performing above other US food innovations (distinctiveness T2B: 74% vs 69% norm ) - which is  the main contributor to their high breakthrough potential (83%). 

And AI is great at generating highly distinctive ideas. In our previous testing, 90% of AI generated concepts scored significantly above the norm on Distinctiveness — and MoonBite Minis are no exception. 

The festive, fun and healthier Halloween chocolates are seen as significantly more distinctive than the average US food innovation by all types of consumers, and those that have a higher likelihood of trial (those under 45 and frequent chocolate eaters). What’s notable is that they are also seen as distinctive among those not particularly sold on the idea and execution like adults over 45 and more occasional chocolate eaters (buy chocolate once every 2-3 months) given their unique benefits. This helps broaden their breakthrough potential and aligns with successful seasonal launches.

“Early adopters” find MoonBite Minis even more distinctive (82%) than the general category buyers. Higher distinctiveness is aligned with what we typically see among this group who contribute  more strongly to sales, especially at launch, and are more likely to speak to others about the product, increasing reach. 

When it comes to advantage (perceived as better than other products), MoonBite Minis are in line with the average US food innovation (advantage T2B: 52% vs 53% norm).  What’s particularly striking is that both frequent chocolate buyers (who had strong trial) and less frequent chocolate buyers (who had average trial) see the advantage of the new line of chocolates that offer a healthier option in fun shapes and flavors for Halloween. Again, this helps broaden the product appeal.

Similar to distinctiveness, “Early adopters” are much more likely to perceive MoonBite Minis as having an advantage versus the total audience. This is aligned with the higher levels we typically expect among this important group, contributing to stronger trial and breakthrough.

What do they like about it?

People particularly like the flavors as well as the look and feel of the MoonBite Minis, but also mention the small size and the fact that it’s a healthier option. 

The top attributes associated with the new product also reflect the look and feel as well as the experience of eating MoonBite Minis. Nearly 60% agree that it’s “ideal for Halloween,” and around two-fifths agree that it “has cool packaging” (44%), “is great for kids” (42%), “would feel like a treat” (40%) and/or “looks appealing” (39%).

More specifically, consumers like the fun, cute packaging, the Halloween shapes and flavors, the number of different varieties and that it’s a healthy alternative to regular candy. The small sizes also enable them to have portion control and try all of the different flavors. 

Many of these elements reflect new product seasonal best practices: chocolate is highly relevant for Halloween and the product uses seasonal colors, shapes and flavors that appeal to consumers.

Here’s what people had to say MoonBite Minis:

• "I love these. I love the packaging and marketing, the fact they are cute little spooky treats, and that they have so many different flavors. I think these would sell super well in October.”

• "They are different flavors, different shapes for Halloween and individually wrapped."

• "I really like the visual appeal of the whole entire product and especially the cool name."

• "I like the cute packaging and the flavors sound really good."

• "I really like the package. I think the portion size is spot on. The fact that it is a healthier option for a chocolate fix is great."

• "I like the health benefits. The flavors seem good and the design is cute."

• "The product is unique and I would like to try healthy chocolate options."

• "I love the idea. So cute and single serving perfect."

As expected, not everyone likes the MoonBite Minis —  a small minority think that this is an odd Halloween treat for kids. As a healthier option, this may skew more naturally towards adults than children. 

Additionally, a minority mentioned they don’t like the small size or the flavors, specifically dark chocolate, pumpkin spice and exotic matcha explosion. 

What’s interesting is that the likelihood to purchase each of the varieties is similar overall, suggesting that the general range has a similar appeal to most chocolate eaters — and it’s only a few who may not like specific flavors. 

Finally, another factor that could help potential trial is to drive more communication about the delicious taste. People aren’t entirely clear on what to expect from the product (clarity at 58% is significantly below the 74% norm) and taste perceptions are marginally lower than the US norm ( T2B “would taste delicious” perception is 31% vs 36% norm). This is not surprising as some consumers may perceive a trade-off of “good taste” for “healthier” products.

Overall, MoonBite Minis would be a successful Halloween launch with a set of unique and fun seasonal chocolate flavors and shapes that offer a portion-controlled and healthier alternative to other chocolate candy. It's almost spooky when we think about the fact we created this concept in 5 minutes!

It’s a fun and distinctive new choice for people during a season often overwrought with unhealthy options. This further reflects the power that well developed AI techniques, alongside human creators, can have in assisting in and expediting the ideation process for innovation. 

What did you think? Let us know by interacting with our coverage of the product on LinkedIn.

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