Here at Lab42 we’ve been sharing the results of our innovation survey, looking at how important innovation is to consumers’ purchasing decisions and how innovative products – even grocery products – can command an innovative premium.  This month we look at the best way for brands to showcase their innovative prowess and new offers– both in terms of sales channel and message.We found that’s it is vitally important for brands to tap into the power of reviews and recommendations.

In this connected world 82% of our sample find online customer reviews influential, more so than professional reviews, at 74%. The study also found that over half of all consumers will look at a brand’s social media page and look up commercials and company information on YouTube prior to purchase, 57% and 53% respectively.

However even with the significant influence of social factors in purchasing, and the declining audiences for terrestrial television, we found that traditional television advertising still has an important role in promoting new products. When we looked at what was the best way to advertise a new product, 52% said that it was traditional television advertising, compared to 16.9% for store promotions and events and 12.9% for online ads.Innovation also plays an important part in advertisement recall, with almost half of all consumers (48.5%) unlikely to remember the advertising of a product or brand or felt was not innovative.

However, just focusing on functionality in the messaging isn’t enough.  Messages that show both the function of a product as well as emotions are most successful with 56.3% claiming it to be most successful, compared to those that feature only functionality at 32.7%.

Interested in learning more about Lab42’s research methodology and how it stacks up against traditional panels? Check out our Research on Research.