Remember when you were young, and you asked your parents to start calling you by a different name because you thought [insert favourite fictional character here]’s name sounded better than the one you were given? Well relaunching a brand is kind of like that, except instead of a different name, it’s different packaging. And instead of a person, it’s a product. So really, it’s not like that at all.
Any number of factors can prompt a brand to relaunch a range or product, however there are two main reasons that stand out to ’s marketing manager, retail division, Christian Skaar. There are instances where the brand is having a slow down and you need to do something to rejuvenate it, then you have the other type of relaunch where you discover new technology and you decide that it’s worth drawing some attention to.”
The latter was the motivation behind Schwarzkopf’s decision to relaunch their Extra Care range earlier this year, after the brand discovered a formula that allowed them to incorporate liquid keratin across the range. We had relaunched the range at the end of 2007, which was fairly recent, but then this new technology came along and we didn’t want to wait for somebody else to come out with it – we wanted to be first to market,” Skaar explains.
In other cases, such as that of homeware and bodycare brand , a relaunch is more about ensuring the brand’s appearance is in keeping with current trends. In-home design is always evolving, and because we want to have pride of place in people’s homes, we need to evolve as well,” Ecoya’s chairman Geoff Ross explains. Ross says that Ecoya’s redesign was also necessary for the brand to expand into international markets. We realised that if we wanted to retail in Bloomingdale’s in the US or Lane Crawford in Hong Kong [where Ecoya is now stocked], you can’t just have good packaging, you’ve got to be seen as the leader in packaging.”
For others, it’s about reconnecting with consumers, as is the case for , which is relaunching its Red Door fragrance this year. According to the brand’s general manager Natalie Sella, even though we’re a brand that’s 100 years’ old and we’re steeped in very rich heritage, we want to be known as a modern contemporary brand and we want to be a staple part of consumers’ beauty regime.”
Of course, there’s plenty of time and research that goes into a relaunch. Skaar explains that for Schwarzkopf, a relaunch begins with a vast amount of international research. It’s a project that starts about two years prior, especially if you change formulas.” In saying that, if a relaunch doesn’t involved a change in formula, only packaging, as was the case for Ecoya, the process can be much faster. The whole process probably took about six to nine months,” says Ross.
Skaar says that gathering research to determine whether a relaunch is viable is generally more computer-based in Australia compared to overseas markets (which tends to call for more consumers to actually go to a research centre and give their feedback in person). We have a very high level of accessibility to the Internet here, which isn’t the case in a lot of countries, so you wouldn’t get a good viewpoint of the whole society as you would in Australia.”
Once a new formula, packaging or brand positioning has been decided on, a marketing strategy is developed to best promote those changes. Ross says for Ecoya’s redesign, the brand first met with key retailers so they knew what was coming, before launching the new look to media with a PR event. Each market was different, but in Australia we held an event at Collette Dinnigan’s house to launch the range to key beauty media. We used different rooms of the house to profile a certain fragrance.”
By investing so much money in the relaunch of a range, the brand must be clear on what they want out the campaign. For the relaunch Red Door for example, Elizabeth Arden hopes to help people discover more about other products in the brand. It’s what we call leveraging the halo effect on the brand,” explains Sella. We’re investing a significant amount of money in the brand both in terms of in-store activity but also in our marketing campaign – we’re running TV, we’re running print, advertorial and editorial with key partners. What that does is that it will have an overall rub effect in terms of brand awareness on Elizabeth Arden as a whole not just Red Door.”
They say nobody likes change, so more often than not, a rebrand is likely to result in some negative feedback initially. Ross says that while the reaction to Ecoya’s packaging changes was overall positive, there were definitely people who didn’t warm to the idea at first. We just told those people that we thought it was important for us to do as we export more and expand offshore, we think we need to develop our brand continually,” he explains. And it was a decision that paid off for Ecoya, with sales continuing to grow, and in fact double, since the relaunch.
In terms of consumer satisfaction, Schwarzkopf countered any negative feedback by offering a money-back guarantee for the first three months of the Extra Care relaunch. The money-back guarantee is one of those things that we haven’t seen a lot of people take up, but there are lots of people buying the product, which says something positive about the changes I think,” says Skaar. We have had sales rates above our expectations, and that’s something we’ve see internationally with that range, so it was a very successful move for us.”