2016 in review - product launch
My biggest task coming into my role at Vetericyn (Fall 2015) was to launch a new, innovative product into the Pet industry. The market research and product development had already been completed before I rejoined the team. We had two things going for us that would set us apart from the rest of the competition: 1) new way to apply shampoo 2) our shampoo was customized-- you get to choose which one to use based on how long or how short your pet's coats were. The following are a few images I took from months of work discussing and visualizing the look and feel of the product itself.
Vetericyn "FoamCare" finally hit the shelves in the Summer of 2016. I was responsible for coordinating marketing efforts including the labeling, pre-launch promotions with print and digital advertisement, push and pull promos, and communications with partners in the industry.
These were the preliminary mock-ups of the product labels. We were introducing a new way to apply shampoo on your pets using a trigger spray which produced a foaming shampoo. It was meant to be an easier and fun way to clean your furry loved ones.
Below are the final products (the label completely evolved from the beginning to end). We catered to both the Pet and Equine (Horse) markets with these shampoos with two differentiators: 1) an innovative way to apply (foaming spray) 2) based on the density of the animals' coats. We brought in a creative agency to give us that extra appeal for our point of purchase aesthetics:
That's me in Orlando, FL debuting our new line (our baby!) at the Global Pet Expo:
Shoutout to my incredible marketing team. It was a long, crazy road, but we delivered a fine product and I'm so grateful for the project.
Key takeaways (because this was a daunting challenge-- especially juggling my last year of grad school classes):
1.) Overcommunicate -- you need everyone from the team at headquarters to the manufacturers, sales team, vendors, and retailers ALL ON THE SAME PAGE. Visualize your goals and place them on something you can distribute, so that they can see it-- create calendars, a gantt chart to get everyone up to speed. I set up bi-weekly phone meetings with our marketing team and sales team to get them updated. Before every meeting, I sent out all the docs in an email--what we were going to accomplish in the next two weeks before we met again. The sales managers and my directs needed daily updates.
2.) Be prepared for anything -- there are plenty of things that will go wrong and you have to be willing to roll up your sleeves and get dirty. There were a couple of missed deadlines because of a label misprint and a scheduling conflict with production. You can't control that and you can only move on and make sure you're ahead of other tasks.
3.) Show your appreciation -- a few team members from other departments stepped up big time to help us meet shipment deadlines. Our design team was always so timely with their edits. The sales team sold our product even before they were available because of our reputation and value as a company. My teammates were always on point, although we weren't always on the page with some things, we always came together to get the job done and we've got this awesome product to show for it.