The countdown is on! While launching a brand can seem like a daunting thing to do! Deadlines are looming and your ‘to do’ list is growing daily. With good organisational skills and the right approach you can make sure it all goes off (somewhat) seamlessly! There will inevitably be the last minute last minute piece of collateral that has suddenly landed on your plate, but who doesn’t like a bit of excitement! Follow our 5 essential tips to boost your brand launch!

1. Never underestimate a good list

Make a list of everything that you want to achieve – new logo, brand guidelines, business cards, merchandise, press releases, stationary, website, social media, signage etc.

Once you have a list of all items you would like to have at your disposal for the brand launch, weight each item in terms of how critical it is to have for the launch date. Now you have a list of all items needed in order of their priority.

2. Budget Realistically

Make sure to get accurate pricing for each piece of collateral on your list. Once you have these costs, you can assess which items are critical and affordable for your launch and which items won’t make the final cut.

One important piece of advice at this stage is not to cheap out on the merchandise, print or web materials. You have invested quite a bit of money and time on your new state of the art brand design, so don’t compromise the brand value now by producing the cheapest pens you can find. Perceptions are very important at the new launch stage of a brand, so guess what happens when you start handing out cheap pens? They end up in the bin, not a good start. Spend a bit more here and it will stand to you in the long run.

3. Strict Timelines

In an ideal world, you would have as much time as you need for such an important launch right? I’m afraid not, certain items have a very long lead time, and this is something you need to find out sooner rather than later to avoid any nasty surprises. Start with your brand launch date and work backwards. Using the weighted list, you can now assess what is feasible to complete within your allocated time and budget depending on design and production lead times. You will be amazed how quickly time flies when you have a concrete deadline, so don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.

4. Prepare Detailed Briefs

Sit down and think about each item individually, what do you envisage the final product looking like? What exactly are you hoping to get out of this piece of collateral? What content do you want to include? A good brief will give your design team a better idea of exactly what you are looking for, meaning the first proof will be closer to the final finished product. This saves both your time and the designers time and will also serve as a good exercise to really analyse what each piece of collateral is going to do to support your launch.

Get a second pair of eyes to look over everything. When you are very close to the ins and outs of a company, you would be surprised the things that you might overlook assuming this is common knowledge. Imagine that you are briefing this to someone who has never heard of your company.

5. Don’t forget your internal rollout!

It is important that your new branding and messaging resonates with your current and potential customers. In order for this to happen, your employees need to get on board first. New brands will often come with some internal change, so it is important to make sure that all your employees emanate your new brand values.

One way to do this is to have an internal brand launch before the external launch. Unveil your new brand and explain the decision making that led to the new branding and why it looks like it does. This level of involvement will help to make it an exciting time for everyone involved and help your employees buy into the new brand direction.

Give your employees useful gifts with the new branding on it, a nice pen and notebook goes a long way!

Some additional takeaways

Make a plan, make sure everyone is on board and then stick to it. Get approval on initial direction from the top so that there are no speed bumps further down the line that could cause delays and cost money.

If you are rebranding as opposed to launching an entirely new brand, don’t be sentimental. Out with the old and in with the new! Get rid of anything with old logo and branding as this will help drive the new brand forward.

Talk, talk, talk! Social media is a great way to build momentum ahead of a brand launch, share photos during it, and thank everyone afterwards.

Finally… launch and never look back!

Mark Sheehan, Account Manager

The IDEA team has created and implemented many well known brands and would be delighted to discuss any aspect of your brand with you. Initial meetings with our team are free. Call us on 01 2500050.

Branding Strategy

“To Evolve: to change or develop often into a better, more complex, or more advanced state: to develop by a process of evolution.”

The world as we know it is in a constant state of change. So it is imperative now more than ever that your brand must evolve and adapt to changes in both the market and your customer base. Why? Because your customers’ needs are always changing and your brand needs to ensure it can keep up or be at risk of losing them.

Know your Customer

When undergoing any change it is critical to always keep your end goal in mind. Ask yourself who are you selling to? Who does your messaging need to resonate with? In most cases this will be your end customer, so evolving and adapting from the bottom up will ensure you can now only listen to your customers’ needs – but you can effectively and efficiently deliver on them.

Remember, it’s not always about being the biggest or even the best, it’s about engaging with your customer so they feel like they belong with your brand. This brings brand loyalty and returning customers.

Adding Customer Experience

Brands need to be streamlined to communicate efficiently with customers who are becoming more demanding than ever. You must offer them more than a product or service; the most successful brands offer their customers unrivalled positive customer experiences.

By being proactive about your brand experience, you can position yourself for success. Additionally, by fine tuning your design and messaging, you are creating consistency across all of your brand touchpoints which will lead to great customer experience. Customer satisfaction (analysed with surveys and focus groups) can be a powerful and cost-effective tool, which can help you maintain a successful brand.

It’s not just about creating awareness or a persona – you need to create meaning for your end customer and stay ahead of your competition. This process needs to be thought through in detail, and a great way of doing this is to conduct an in-depth workshop. A quick fix is never a good solution and if you don’t adapt to address this in detail, it can derail future plans and projects. Quantitative and qualitative research can bring valuable results and help your roadmap your journey to success.

Stand Out From The Competition

Competition is increasing, as hundreds of startups emerge from the market, more enthusiastic and willing to do more to gain a customer base. One of the most important steps to gaining a market share is your website. To succeed in delivering your brand messages effectively, you need a sleek, modern website design that is easy to navigate and presents information quickly. Attention spans are decreasing, so brands needs to be aware of this ever-changing landscape in order to keep all elements of their business up to date. Websites are crucial, as these are one of the main points of contact with your customers. It is also very important when designing and developing your website to make sure that it is built in such a way to allow scalability. If your brand evolves and changes over time, you need to be able to update your website to reflect this.

When analysing your brand and business plans some can hold an “it’s not broken, so what is there to fix” view. IDEA would champion the alternative view that while your brand may not seem broken it could benefit from some maintenance. A machine that isn’t regularly oiled is more likely to fall apart.

Look at Apple – the world’s largest information technology company. Founded in 1976, the company’s logos has been re-envisioned and redesigned several times. Each revamp represents a fresh approach for Apple – yet while certain elements such as colour have changed, it’s apparent who the company is. Ask yourself this, would Apple now be worth an estimated $178.1 billion if they were still promoting their brand using their 1976 logo? Admittedly your company might not be Apple, but why not aim to be?

Strategy for Success

Always analyze and review your branding – you can either be moving forward or standing still. So ask yourself this where are you, and more importantly – where are your competition?

We believe there is always something you can improve on. Being stagnant will not bring success, so why not choose to be a champion? IDEA are here to advise on how you can build and develop your brand to help you engage with your customers and bring customer loyalty. Why not get in touch?