NEW PRODUCT LAUNCHES & BRAND STRETCH

You will be familiar with the challenges that face the launch of a new product; we are told that between 80 and 95% of them fail within a year. All too often the excitement, enthusiasm, energy and sheer hard work that results in a precious listing is followed by a de-listing a few short months later because the sales just aren’t good enough.

Why is this? We believe it’s often because insufficient resource is focussed on getting the packaging right. Your packaging needs to effectively communicate these vital messages to the consumer:

• What the new product is.  If it really is new, the consumer won’t have bought it before so can be forgiven for overlooking it.
• Why they should buy it.  Packaging needs to persuade them of the new product’s USP and why it’s better than the product they currently buy.
• Credibility in a new category. Your brand might be leader in its home category, but if it’s the new kid on the block in a new category it may not have the credentials to play convincingly.
• Why they should continue to buy other products in the range. Commercial sense means that the NPD shouldn’t cannibalise sales from other products in the range

Who is this service for?

You have an established food, drink or healthcare brand; it might even be category leader. You’ve built a strong NPD pipeline fuelled by consumer insight and perhaps some product innovation. Or you might have spotted a category or geographical market where your brand doesn’t currently exist, but you have a hunch that is has the credentials to stretch into it.

You might be ready to create some pack designs for concept testing research that can give your brand and your new product the best chance of success in research, yet don’t require the investment of going the whole hog through to final pack design. Or you’re already confident you’re on to a winner with a concept and you now need to create the packaging design for launch.

Benefits of working with Reach

We are steeped in brand and packaging design, however, that isn’t always enough when it comes to a brand stretch challenge. So given our belief in Client Democracy, we’ve honed our brand stretch process to include you, your opinions and your hunches in the upfront strategic planning.

We take time to analyse the market into which you wish to stretch your brand to arrive at a set of category visual rules. In tandem we will analyse the brand in question to assess which of the packaging equities the brand has that can be leveraged in the new category. Between us we will create the brief for the new product.

How the process works

1. Conversation. We’ll start with a conversation that checks that we can help you with the particular challenge you are facing for roughly the budget you have. 
2. Face to Face. This will be followed by a face to face (or video conference) meeting where you will give us an overview briefing and we can give you an idea of what we’re like to work with by showing you case studies that demonstrate how we have successfully tackled similar challenges before. We’ll also agree the full scope of the project.
3. Outline costs. All being well, and if we both believe the chemistry is right, we will follow up this meeting with a topline costing that outlines the process, costs and timing. And if that is acceptable to you, we can then kick the project off by providing you with a detailed proposal for your sign off.
4. Briefing. Our first project meeting will be an in-depth briefing where we’ll help you download all your knowledge (we’ll give you a questionnaire before this meeting to help you gather your thoughts and information).
5. Workshop. The next step will be a workshop with the full Reach team (Caroline Hagen, the lead designer and the account director) and here we will create the foundations of success for your new brand design.