67%
actively seek owned brand products
Shoppers today aren’t just browsing — they’re making thoughtful choices. They want brands that reflect their values, solve real problems, and feel like more than just a label. This shift is reshaping how private brands must appear in the market.
Plan ahead — private brand success takes time
The best private brands don’t just show up — they are prepared. Start early, stay flexible, and focus on creating a launch that earns trust and builds momentum from day one.
Use this timeline to guide your launch strategy, generate early buzz, and ensure your brand is ready to shine.
PRE-LAUNCH
6–12 months
• Define your brand positioning and unique value.
• Align cross-functional teams (product, marketing, creative, retail).
• Concept your brand’s
look and feel — logos,
packaging, messaging
• Concept your brand’s
look and feel — logos, packaging, messaging.
3–6 months
• Distribute
product to brand
ambassadors to trial
5–6 months
• Distribute
product to brand
ambassadors to trial
5 months
• Sign off on creative
Hover below for stats
How critical are product reviews
to consumers?
Do product descriptions and brand
photos matter to shoppers?
Do product descriptions and brand
photos matter to shoppers?
Just one review can
increase sales by 10%...
Ratings and reviews give your brand crucial insights into products, so you can:
Identify opportunities for product improvement
Enhance your messaging and marketing strategy
3M uses reviews to innovate and improve products ahead of launch.
“Sometimes reviews reinforce our key uses, and sometimes it's a surprise in terms of how people use [Post-It® products]. We also hear some negative things, but that is an opportunity for our product development team to re-evaluate and incorporate that feedback.”
– Erica Schiebel, Brand Communications Supervisor at 3M
“Sometimes reviews
reinforce our key uses, and
sometimes it's a surprise...”
Success story
Rael
Product sampling gave Rael an effective way to:
Mine customer sentiment about new products
Refine its marketing messaging
Turn feedback into action
Every brand wants to go viral, but the mechanics are complex. The only way to play the game is to share and maximize the impact of content consumers want to see.
Video content can be particularly effective, especially for a brand like Canon. The company live-streamed its Canon EOS R5 and EOS R6 launch event and Q&A session in July 2020. The videos were later posted to YouTube and the Canon site – and continued to attract viewers and drive demand for 10 days following the event.
“This was new, and we had two targets — people who had watched the launch video and those who had watched the Q&A. We ran out of stock on our own web store within hours. The demand was crazy.”
– Vishal Patel, Digital Interactions Specialist at Canon Europe
Success story
River Island
Offer exclusives to fans to generate FOMO
Exclusivity is an excellent way to inspire fear of missing out (FOMO) for your brand before and during a product launch. Social media is one of the best places to generate FOMO.
River Island launched a dress from its 2019 collection exclusively via Instagram ahead of its entire collection.
The best product launches put social media users in charge.
River Island
Canon
The River Island campaign #ImWearingRI offers customers the chance to take selfies, which are shared on River Island's official Instagram account.
“You can't just talk to your audience; it needs to be a conversation. Our social media accounts constantly chat with customers and share their images of their clothes. It's why we've got 2.4 million followers on Instagram!”
– Chloe Bebbington, River Island Social and Community Lead in the UK
You can use a few practical strategies to maximize your product's success and ensure a secure and profitable long-term trajectory.
Before launch, leverage insights from sampling campaigns. Gather data from reviews and social posts, which will give you insight into the most appropriate way to engage with your target demographic when the product goes live. Drilling down how customers will interact with your product can aid you in optimizing page text, filters, and visuals for the transaction-focused experience.
After launch, it is essential to consider all potential data sources, such as paid keyword effectiveness in paid media, strong revenue-driving keyword search terms in organic search, and conducting social listening audits. Reviews and Q&As are useful sources of sentiment analysis and help provide valuable insight into what customers consider important.
A PESO* strategy can help
A balance between paid, earned, shared, and owned media should be maintained to ensure a successful launch. Paid and owned channels are essential for promoting content, tactics, and offers, but earned and shared content and channels offer a more organic perspective that customers will appreciate. By conducting a marketing mix modeling (MMM) analysis, you can identify the most cost-effective elements, enabling you to optimize your content and channel mix.
e
P
S
O
converged
Your next converting
content will be
converged
Click for examples of paid, earned,
shared, and owned media
* PESO Model © by Gina Dietrich of Arment Dietrich, Inc., available under a Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives License 4.0 at spinsucks.com
Success story
Kraft Heinz
Kraft Heinz understood from the get-go that generating social buzz for its new salad dressings would be the key to successful product launches.
Before launching eight new offerings from its Kraft Dressings Vinaigrettes, Twisted Ranch, and Bitten lines, the company tapped into Bazaarvoice's Influenster community to help generate reviews and visual content. It worked.
Looking forward
Getting more content in more places (faster!) is top of mind for marketers as companies respond to a sharp swing in consumer behavior.
Post-it® has seen a substantial rise in the importance of e-commerce.
“There has been an increased desire and appetite from consumers. The team has tried to prioritize e-commerce content even more than before.”
– Erica Schiebel, Brand Communications Supervisor at 3M
$1.2T
Global sales made through social commerce are expected to reach $1.2 trillion by 2025
$16.4M
The market size of influencer marketing jumped 19% to $16.4 billion in 2022
While uncertain, the future looks exciting for brands focused on delivering a seamless and engaging omnichannel experience for their customers.
This e-book is also available as a downloadable PDF.
Download PDF
Launching a product with a bang requires preparation and execution. A winning product launch begins with early planning and a strategy focusing on:
Creating a product launch timeline
Timely product sampling
Listening to consumer feedback
Building social buzz
Sharing user-generated content
Optimizing your strategy
Follow these 6 steps to help ensure your
next product launches with a bang.
References