Feb
Launch or Re-Launch: How To Breath Life Into Your Brand
When we were approached some years ago to help “launch” a 70-year-old brand, we admit to scratching our heads a while.
But there were loads of reasons that Folbot, the maker of folding kayaks with a beyond-loyal following, deserved a second act. First of all, the company had new owners, and that usually signals a willingness to embrace new techniques. Secondly, Folbot had not received much attention over the decades from mainstream media. And finally, the product is awesome.
Fast forward: we developed a launch strategy, the tools to back it up, and began executing. Within about a year, the sleek kayaks one assembles from a backpack were gracing the pages of Outside, Vanity Fair, Conde Nast Traveler, and Town & Country Travel. The company’s story was being told in the Wall Street Journal, and all over the internet.
So what lessons did we learn that might benefit your second act?
1. Look at your brand with new eyes. Involve new people in your enterprise, and pay attention to how they see your product, and the world in which it lives.
2. Embrace your history. There’s no reason to shed your past or shy away from hit. Heck, remember the Hush Puppies story in Malcolm Gladwell’s “TheTipping Point.” A brand can be in the throes of death and still come back to life.
3. Remember that new makes news. You need a hook of some kind in your re-launch, and the best hooks involve improved customer experience.