Brand Re-launch, the other side of the story.

Brand Re-launch, the other side of the story.
It’s not merely about modifying the outlook.

Brand Re-launch, I always wondered that its just the outlook and reinventing the brand elements. Following I believe are the major things we notice as a naïve consumer:

1.The new design
2.The refreshed advertisements
3.A colorful packaging
4.Sometimes a new tag line
5.New brand ambassador
6.Newspaper talking about it – which again is a part of re-launch covering the PR exercise of the brand.

In addition, a lot many exercises making make the brand image better and further improvise the positioning of the brand.

The other side, the actual process involved.

As per my knowledge so far, rather I should say as per my experience and the information I gathered from whatever brands I have dealt with, brand re-launch is much more then what a common consumer notices and realizes. It’s not merely the creative changes varying to design, its not even limited to consumer promos like some Rs. Off and buy one get one free its actually much more. It involves the change in full distribution cycle, its change at the very ground level involving almost all the intermediaries which no doubt starts from Brand team, the agency work, the design till those at ground level like Suppliers, packaging department, the printers, the outdoor media etc.

Lets take an example for the brand named XYZ,Here the case is that its an established brand, a little old by age and is been suffering because of the sudden influx of brands in the same category and also the increasing spend of other brands to remain competitive. Now suffering of the competition, the marketing and brand team thinks on re-launching the brand or we can say the "Old Wine in New Bottle" scenario. Moreover, the budget is always a constraint as the product / brand is in the maturity stage already and hence spend on it is also controlled and limited. So broadly, I believe the process has the following steps:

1. Brand Re-launch decision by marketing and brand team.

This involves decisions of marketing team on things like variation in product, now it can be including a new variant under the same brand or extending the product line and hence extending the brand or sometimes introducing sub-brand. It might not even involve any variation at all in the brand hierarchy.

2. Brand Planning and Budget.

Next level involves planning in terms of budgets, spends, activation dates, seasonal offers, agency, timelines etc. It actually involves finalizing things on the intermediaries for the second level until the co-ordination among all of these. Once the intermediaries are finalized, the purchase teams and packaging teams are informed on the same.

3. Designing and Production.

Now after the things are finalized and the teams are ready with the timelines, the designing that is done by the ad agencies is taken up. It usually is a long process as the approvals from all the concerned teams have to be taken, where in the brand is concerned about the branding on packs and the POPs in retail and the elements of the same. The marketing and activation teams are concerned more about the budgets allotted and meeting the timelines, for them the major concern is to get the best outputs in the minimal spend. Where as in terms of packaging, the packaging teams have a different but important role to play as they have to meet the legal regulations in terms of declarations and important information, which is mandatory to be communicated to the consumer. This is also a concern now for the leaflets etc with the increasing concern among consumers; an example for the same can be the subway leaflets mentioning the calories each contained in each offering.

Once the design gets finalized, the artwork process begins and once the files are ready as per the printing process and packaging, the production of artworks began which further is a long process to and needs a lead time of atleast 2-3 months. Since I am not a technical person would like not to get into the practical details of the technicalities but it actually is an interesting process. The process starts with getting the raw materials like substrate, inks etc and then the cylinders are made for each, further down sometimes proofing is required to check the final output, sometimes things even get changed and rejected at the same time because of the failure to achieve desired output. Once the things get done here, the artworks are ready for the purchase team which further sends it to the manufacturing factories (if packaging artworks) or to the outdoor media agencies if the brand has decided for a total re-branding and marketing communication strategy as well.

This is the understanding of a Brand Re-launch process that is far more then the marketing journals and the management books.

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