Confessions of a Brand Launch
At the beginning of the month, we unveiled a refreshed brand as we became Averson Creative, so as we end the month, we want to share with you a little behind-the-scenes glance at what actually went into the dreamy Instagram posts, the refreshed website, and the eager energy on launch day.
A little disclaimer to begin:
We are artists and content creators and we know it’s not “best practice” in our sector to talk about mistakes, share flaws, or even name that we are still learning too! But that’s the truth, folks: we are here to create beautiful things, not perfect things.
And so, we thought it would be fun to walk you through our Averson Creative launch process from our perspective to:
Pass down some knowledge to you for your next big reveal and
Remind you that it’s okay if you feel like you don’t have this thing mastered yet.
The Vision
A brand launch is a huge deal to any brand, and that was no different within our Averson team. This wasn’t just professional; this was personal to each of us in different ways. It was a milestone, a feat, an accomplishment, and a long-awaited announcement. (That personal aspect can bring up all sorts of emotions and unspoken fears or anxieties as well. More on that below.)
Did we mention we are artists and content creators? Naturally, our vision for this launch was bright, sparkling, and crisp. We wanted to drop sneaky hints, break the news at just the right time, and leave you all begging for more. Since one of our organizational values is systems, we anticipated this being processed, scheduled, and methodical. Hint: most good launches are.
The Plan
So let’s talk about schedules.
In early July, after spending several months discussing and discerning a potential shift to Averson Creative and setting up a bit of an operating structure, we named the date September 1 as our launch day. The secret to picking a good launch date is being realistic about how much time it will actually take you to prepare your launch content; since we value honesty with each other, we were clear in saying when we were free and what would and would not be achievable within the suggested time frame. Inversely, planning a launch date too far out from the present moment can leave room for procrastination. For our team, we work better with a little fire under our butts, but not so much that we’re burning up.
The secret ingredient is always margin. We had planned on being done with all launch content about 6 days (4 business days) before we launched.
Our love for organization added to our shared need for urgency, made a project plan a virtual requirement for this kind of effort. See ours below.
On the Averson team, we use tools like Google Drive and Slack to allow for ample communication about joint projects, especially when we’re not all working out of the same space. You’ll see on the calendar, every 2-3 weeks we scheduled a team meeting and work day that allowed us to check in, give updates, and block off some time for project completion.
Surprise!
So, us, being our innocent, organized selves marched into this full steam ahead.
Needless to say we experienced some - ahem - surprises along the way. We share the following in hopes that our experience can guide the way for any future ones. This is how we learn.
Project creep
The first challenge we want to admit is that working on your own business is always the hardest - especially when branding is your craft. Brooke is a master of brand design, but when it comes to Averson’s visual brand sometimes it’s hard to see the forest through the trees. We wanted to update the Averson website to reflect our new direction, but what started as a “refresh” quickly turned into a full restructuring with a lot of complex customization. This is what we call “project creep” : when something becomes a much larger undertaking than what you initially envisioned.
How we fixed it: With a lot of coffee. Next?
Just kidding (sorta). To be perfectly honest, we just had to get done what we had to get done when it came to the website so there was a very real element of just grinding through. However, a best practice of Brooke’s is to design everything in AdobeXD before moving anything into a live website, which allows for a methodical and more artistic approach to web design. Additionally, much like we offer to clients, Sena was able to support Brooke through both writing and curating site content. We really can’t say enough about the wonders a writer and content specialist can do for your site. It not only lightens the load on the designer, but it gives an added element of flow and purpose to the site that visuals alone don’t bring. These systems are set up to be something of a “tether” for that inevitable project creep effect.
2. Distanced media
What you may or may not know is that our team is actually not all located in the same city, or actually even in the same country. Fooled ya, didn’t we? In normal times, we would be able to easily gather periodically and certainly for a project of this caliber, but as we know it’s 2020. Since the U.S.-Canada border has been closed since March, we had no way of scheduling a team brand media shoot prior to launch (which was more heartbreaking than anything, to be honest) and yet we desperately needed the content.
How we fixed it: Thankfully we know a guy (who happens to be married to the one of us who lives in Canada) who is more-than-competent with a camera and Amanda was able to send a specific shot list and actually video call into the shoot to help him stage photo + video under her artistic vision. He sent the raw files to her, so that every image still had the Averson touch.
Fun Fact: Associate shooting, which is the formal name for what we describe above, is actually a best practice in the industry. If you love our visuals but are not located in an area we shoot often, it’s still worth reaching out and asking about a media package because Amanda is great at working with associates.
3. Timelines are good, but they aren’t perfect
About that detailed project plan a few minutes ago… It was absolutely necessary and a great jumping off point for our project launch. We would have been lost at sea without it. But the thing about calendars is you sometimes have to hold them loosely, knowing that things will change. With so many moving pieces and a whole new flow to Averson content creation, we had to practice patience with each other as we all “moved in together” and learned each other’s everyday habits.
We will not lie: that “breathe and margin” time we had so responsibly allotted for did not happen. Oh well. That’s why we allow margin, right?
How we fixed it: Well, for one, we had a 5.5 hour Zoom call (yes, as in over half of a work day) the week before launch. Good thing we like working with each other, because that doesn’t include the dozens of off-the-cuff phone calls in between. But what it came down to was ample communication between the three of us, our roles, and our responsibilities. Thankfully the project plan still held up a good deal, so long as we were willing to hold it a little looser. Having budgeted margin was a godsend as well.
4. Feelings
Remember that bit about this being deeply personal to each of us in different ways? At some point in late August, the gravity of what we were about to announce hit us, even though we had been preparing for it for years at this point, and were already more-or-less functioning in the model we intended.
How we fixed it: At our last team meeting before the launch, we each took time to reflect on what we were grieving, fearing, and what we were joyful about. The truth is these emotions usually all go hand in hand and to hear our teammates talk about their grief and fears helped us understand why someone may be gripping a project tightly, for example. Holding all of these feelings at once doesn’t negate the others; we were still categorically ecstatic, but transitions require effort, not just productive effort, but emotional effort too.
5. The moment of truth
Okay, so now picture this. It’s the day before the big launch and despite all aforementioned efforts, we are in deep. But we have now floated several teasers on Instagram, which obviously means we are committed. Clear your calendars, team, because we have website glitches to fix and content to schedule (which, when all three of you play a part in content development is a hell of a time to decide who is doing the actual scheduling, truth be told). To be fair, we were technically not behind but let’s be real: the day before a big launch always feels a little bit chaotic. This (below) was the A+ GIF we sent approximately 7 times that day. Know that the Averson team has a strong GIF game on Slack.
As things got checked off the list, we had hoped that Launch Day would be sweet and celebratory. We did have the foresight to clear our schedules that day, knowing we would be giddy and distracted, so at this point it was just a matter of getting there. Our plan was as follows:
Stay up as late as we need to tonight to get everything ready to go
Hop on Zoom (thanks Covid + distance) at approximately 8 am to do a quick “it’s game day!” check-in, mimosas in hand, having already switched over social media handles and with everything set to go out about an hour later.
Yay, how romantic, right?
True story: Before 8 am on the morning of September 1, one of us cried because she forgot she had double booked a dermatology appointment for the exact same time and had to attend to that.
Another one of us cried because switching over the social media handles went exactly how it was not supposed to and we had to make a very last minute game-time decision to grab our second-place handle. Don’t ever let anybody tell you silver isn’t good enough. Sometimes silver feels like freaking gold.
The third of us was out stress-running because that was about all there was left to do at this point.
How we fixed it: First let us say that we share this because this is how it goes. This is what the Instagram Influencers--for as much as we love them-- do not tell you. This is real life. Things happen. Appointments get double booked. The mimosas get replaced with 6 cups of coffee while problem solving. And yet, it happened. Not everything sank. We did end up moving back the schedule about 90 minutes that morning to troubleshoot and we sat on Zoom as we did and it wasn’t as joyful or playful as you might imagine or as we had hoped but we did it and all of a sudden, Averson Creative was born into the world and it felt just as amazing as we had originally hoped.
Later that day after we watched all of your fun encouragement roll in, we popped bottles and did a little Zoom happy hour and everything felt so much better. That’s our parting blessing:
always, always, always celebrate. It matters.
Stay out of the Weeds
If there is one piece of advice we could give you, our beloved audience, based on this experience it’s to stay out of the weeds. What do we mean by that?
We all exist in our own plots of land. We know those landscapes better than anyone else, and like we mentioned before, we invest our blood, sweat, tears, and sometimes our very identities into cultivating these amazing projects and businesses. We do so with passion and grit, but sometimes we are in so deep that we get lost.. What makes sense to us makes no sense to our audience; what is causing us anxiety is not worthy of the time and energy being robbed from us.
This is why we do what we do. We empathize with you because we are you. We know what it feels like to have big dreams and ideas and want so badly to let them out into the world and to simultaneously struggle with impostor syndrome or just being pulled in 25 other directions.
If you read this and laughed a little bit or felt like you could relate, we invite you to reach out to us if you ever are looking for support launching your own brand or campaign. We offer this as a one-time service so that you can enjoy the part that you really love and let us be your hype-women so the world can see your bravery and courage!
Thanks for sticking with us as we learn and grow. We’re so grateful for a gracious audience like you.
