Success factors of innovations

The French seafood sector is currently confronted with increasing competition from imported products, price fluctuations and new challenges such as environmental issues. In the face of these issues, producers may not be able to meet consumer expectations, and new products intended to boost growth in the seafood sector may not succeed. To clarify the drivers of competitiveness in the seafood sector, a greater understanding of the success factors behind seafood innovation is needed. We use an original database obtained from the merger of two databases. We combine Mintel’s Global New Products Database, which identifies new products launched in France in 2010, 2011 and 2012, with consumption data spanning 2010 to 2014 from a household panel (Kantar). The data allow us to track the quantities of 246 new products purchased in the year after their launch. We run an ordered logit model to measure the impact of product, marketing and market variables on the probability of a product becoming successful. We identify three possibilities: success, i.e., the product is still on the market one year after its launch with an increased quantity; stagnation, i.e., the product is still on the market one year after its launch with a decreased quantity; and failure, i.e., the product is no longer on the market at all a year after its launch. We also run a Cox proportional hazards model with the products’ time on the market as the dependent variable. The model estimates the time that elapses before the product disappears. The results show that three kinds of factors influence competitiveness: firm characteristics (size, specialization), market economic situation and, to a lesser extent, the marketing process.