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9 steps to nail your brand launch campaign

Brand launch campaigns can be tough, you need to consider your messaging, the channels you use and the timing to ensure it’s successful and can evolve.

9 steps to nail your brand launch campaign

1. The set-up

The foundation is set: you’ve defined your brand essence, nailed your positioning, figured out your messaging strategy and determined your tone of voice. The visual identity has been approved. You’ve identified who you are, who your audience is, what you stand for, and how and why you stand above the competition.

All that’s left to do is craft the beautifully executed brand launch campaign that introduces your new brand to the world. A natural inflection point, planning is crucial and its value in the wider process cannot be stressed enough.

Setting up your brand launch campaign is a sure way to avoid confusion and issues within your team and your audiences, and drive success by delivering an emotional connection with your audience, a deep understanding of your capability and the successful communication of your brand’s inherent value.

2. Your logo is not your brand

Before you brief your design team, keep in mind that your logo is not your brand, and forms just one part of it. The initial focus of the branding process is not to decide what you look like and is never about picking your favourite fonts, colours and icons, it’s to capture who you are, what you do, how you do it and why, where you add value and how you make connections.

These attributes, values, characteristics and your positioning will allow your creative team to craft a visual identity rooted in the strategic foundation of your brand. Something that captures the essence of your organisation. Something visual and verbal which makes you stand apart.

By the end of the creative stages, with your brand platform and your visual identity ready to roll, consistency becomes key. For businesses and organisations of any size, the benefits of explaining your new brand and identity system can help to establish and maintain consistency. This includes brand books for the story, the vision and mission, for consistency in the message and how it’s written. On top of this, you’ll also need identity usage guidelines for styling, ensuring that the brand’s visual language is consistently experienced across any and all of your touch points.

3. Create campaign objectives and the framework

Be organised and have a clear objective that will enable each and every member of your team to work towards the same goal. This starts with defining responsibilities and allocating tasks to help share the load and streamline the process.

It may sound obvious but you’ll benefit from spending time planning the launch. Without a considered and well executed approach there is the potential to weaken the brand, even before it takes its first steps. Good planning is the key to avoiding a disjointed or confusing experience.

4. Craft your brand message

Consider the key brand messages you want your audience to take away. How are you going to make that initial emotional connection and value exchange, or communicate your vision, mission, values and purpose? Perhaps this is the ideal time to share the journey of change. Why has the business rebranded? Explain the decision, and describe the path you’ve taken.

5. Consider every marketing channel

Campaigns should be rooted in the strategic vision and objectives you are working to meet. Your business will have a unique mix of marketing channels and it’s important that you review the available options and hierarchy to discover where the biggest opportunities lie.

Once a plan is in place, the task is to tailor your brand message, leveraging content across  multiple marketing channels to ensure maximum engagement.

6. Think about the timing of your campaign activity

An obvious but important factor in the planning of your brand launch campaign. Avoid busy times where the impact is likely to be diminished. This could be a seasonal event or something specific to your industry. Be aware of what the marketplace, and specifically, your competitors are doing to avoid losing momentum. In a competitive world it pays to consider what is the minimal viable launch activity and what can come at a later date.

7. Your team are you fiercest critics, and best ambassadors

You may be fortunate enough to have involved the entirety of your team throughout the branding process and planning of your brand launch campaign, but there’s always an important need to consider how you share the vision internally. Showcase the journey, reveal the new brand and communicate its significance to the business. Your team are your ambassadors and your front-line, their ability to communicate consistently is crucial.

This is also a great time to create some swag: Moleskine notebooks, mugs, pens, and other branded merchandise items are a great way to give your team something tangible that allows them to start using and owning the new brand immediately.

8. Keep communicating to build up your brand layers

Although a significant investment of both time and resource, your job is not yet complete.

Continued, consistent communication is what creates real momentum and it’s vital to keep telling your brand’s story, get into the details and show how your product or service is intrinsically linked back to the business.

Take the opportunity to share news of any updated products or services the business has developed, as well as insights into what’s coming next, and ways your new brand is allowing you to innovate or connect better than ever before.

9. Reflect, adapt, evolve

There’s always a reason for a rebrand, and more often than not, they signal a critical point in the life of a business. Are you pivoting to meet the needs of your audience? Taking your first step in the first phase of growth? Consolidating the brand after a significant innovation? Or, simply refreshing to stay current and relevant?

Following your brand launch campaign, take time to reflect on your different successes and failures. Capture the data, spend time in a wash-up and be clear on how you’ve performed against your initial objectives. Consider the upcoming opportunities to cement your brand in the minds of your audience. Keep moving forward.

Nailing brand launch campaigns – how we’ve done it

At Salad, we’ve been developing and launching brands since our inception in 2001. We recently delivered a complete brand development project for Enginuity that encompassed brand positioning, naming, visual identity, website, video and a full suite of supporting collateral, concluding with both internal and external brand launch campaigns.

A two-phase launch campaign across industry press set the ball rolling, to build anticipation for Enginuity’s big reveal and to showcase the organisation’s purpose, ‘Given the opportunity, one engineer can change their world, and ours’.

The first teaser phase revealed the bold visual style of the new brand, without actually giving away the organisation’s new name. The second phase, which included significant press coverage, confidently launched the new brand and unveiled the organisation’s new name and brand identity in full.

To maximise internal engagement, we collaborated closely with the Enginuity team to design an internal launch for the new brand. Held at the Magna Science Adventure Centre in Rotherham, the celebratory event brought together the entire workforce.

Alongside Enginuity CEO, Ann Watson, CTO, David Ivell and the newly created Innovation team, we presented the new brand’s strategy and visual identity and revealed what the changes meant for the organisation as a whole.

“It has been a pleasure partnering with Salad on this rebranding journey and we’re thrilled with the results. They have supported us throughout the brand launch and we now have a suite of materials which will allow us to effectively use the identity moving forward.”

Ann Watson, Chief Executive
Enginuity

Could we support you with a brand launch campaign?

If you’re interested in talking to us about a brand campaign project or want to find out more about us and what we do, please get in touch.

Arabella Lewis-Smith
Founder & Managing Director
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