Ask a marketer what makes a successful new product launch and they will probably point to the importance of a powerful creative advertising campaign that really captures the attention of consumers.
However, in our recent research into consumer perceptions of product launches, only 5% of the people we surveyed said they had been influenced to buy a product because of the advertising around its launch.
The launch of a new product can be the culmination of years of research and development and planning. It can be a huge investment of time and money. It’s a sobering fact that more product launches fail than succeed.
It’s not as if consumers are uninterested in new products: 74% of the consumers we surveyed said they were excited by new products. But only 28% could name a product launch they remembered. As they say, you only get one chance to make a first impression.
Advertising obviously has a role to play in a successful launch, but perhaps the traditional approach of using big media budgets to force the message into consumers’ skulls just isn’t working. People now respond to a more subtle set of influences that brands need to heed if they’re to get products off the launch pad and into the stratosphere.
For example, for consumer tech products launches, our research revealed that 27% of people are encouraged to buy because of a promotion, 12.5% because they tried the product, and 25% because of good reviews – yet they are often neglected.
Similarly, stock availability, visibility and compelling promotions are crucial. Our research also found that, amazingly, 35% of the shoppers looking for new products in the fast-moving consumer goods sector have been unable to find them in-store.
Given the complexity of modern consumers – and the increasingly fragmented nature of marketing communications – it’s not surprising that advertising alone is not up to the task of ensuring a launch goes with a bang. Achieving marketing lift-off requires a more strategic and all-encompassing approach. By all means, marketers should produce great launch advertising content that excites the consumer, but it needs to be recognised as just one piece of the jigsaw.
Peter Edwards is strategy director at Five by Five
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