How do you approach brand launch strategy?
by Kelly Hobkirk
Strong brand launch strategy starts at the very beginning of brand development, and it continually evolves all the way up to launch. As the brand characteristics become clear, so too does the launch strategy. If you rigidly set a launch strategy, then fail to add flexibility to accommodate the changes along the way, your team will get off track.
Staying on track means strategy questions don’t get sidestepped. It’s impossible to set a rigid launch strategy for a brand that does not yet exist. You can have an idea of what you want to do, but as soon as you clamp down on strategy shifts, you clamp down on potential success and limit your team’s vision.
Imagine you’re launching a new brand, and you need an internal document to get your sales team excited about it. If you impose a rigid brand style guide on the launch and sidestep emerging strategy questions, how can you accommodate new characteristics or holes that have been filled during the branding process?
The answer is simple: you can’t.
If your brand launch strategy remains flexible before all of the brand’s launch announcements and materials are completed, opportunities to capture the full strength of the brand can be developed and used to their full potential.
The key to effective brand launch strategy is flexibility. Once you have completed the full breadth of the brand development, then you can tighten the reigns and plan the final roll out.