Halo Top ice cream (Halo Top Creamery, Los Angeles) and Siggi’s yogurt (Siggi’s, New York) are among the products listed in Nielsen's 2018 Top 25 Breakthrough Innovations list for the U.S. market. The newly released list, which was powered by BASES — a new product innovation discipline within New York Nielsen — examines and celebrates what it takes to achieve consumer and retail success today. STōK cold brew coffee from Danone North America, White Plains, N.Y., also made this year’s list.

Nielsen's breakthrough innovation analysis has been highlighting the best in innovation over the last decade. The 25 brands that made this year's list reflect a wide range of successful approaches that cut through the clutter of today's crowded product marketplace, the company said. The diversity of Nielsen's Top 25 Breakthrough Innovations prove that success comes in many different forms and strategies, as marketers continue to find new ways to make a true impact with consumers through innovation.

This year, Nielsen extended the criteria beyond distinctiveness, relevance and endurance to include a broader set of strategies that successful brands employed, honoring the best execution of each. The result is a list of products that reflect strong, distinct qualities such as mass potential, longevity, brand incrementality, category distinction and appeal toward a specific consumer target, Nielsen said.

"In today's climate, the marketplace is more crowded than ever, so the pressure to innovate is immense," said Jenny Frazier, senior vice president of Nielsen BASES. "We know that successful innovation comes in many forms, from category-growing mega-successes to products that meet the needs of a specific type of consumer, and everything in between.

“This year, Nielsen BASES is awarding success across all the ways we know companies create it — these 25 launches represent the best of a variety of successful strategies all companies employ,” she added. “They have broken through the noise, allowing them to utilize innovation as a means to feed customer demand and desire."

Nielsen said it reviewed close to 3,500 consumer products for this year's list.