Weighing Advertising versus PR for product launches

Here's the scenario: it's time to launch a new product, and you need to coordinate your advertising and publicity plans. Which do you use when? Do you run your ads before you make the announcement? Let announcements appear before the ads appear? Try to time them to run together? There are several schools of thought, and some have more class than others.

Many - perhaps most - companies allow only a gossamer-thin margin for delay or error in their product launch. What if there's a snag and you're 30 days, 90 days, six months late? Which would you want to have already appeared, your news announcements or your ads? While either course is risky business, we recommend taking your blows in editorial. Here's the balance. While your reputation may briefly suffer (hopefully, not irreparably, but damage control is a topic for another time), it doesn't put you in the position of false advertising and it doesn't mean investing cash from your advertising budget into an avenue of no return. And since announcements aren't likely to go out until the last minute, it's easier to simply not make an announcement than to try to substitute or cancel an ad. It's also easier to make a last-minute change in an announcement than to produce a modified ad.

One of the issues that always comes up in discussions of launch timing is a question of control. Will an ad salesman let a reporter have an early peek at your latest effort, blowing your cover before you're ready? (No, for all the more prestigious publications; some have very strict no-contact rules). Will a reporter break a story before your embargo date? (Yes, and ethically, if he or she hears of it from outside sources). Can you trust all reporters to honor an embargo? (Not universally - some publications have clear policies against them; ask before you talk). Will they cover the news as soon as you release it? (Depends on the news and the publication, but never count on any one somebody to run it where and when and the way you want). And then there's the matter of leaks - which can come from Beta sites or your own colleagues - removing any possibility of control. Again here, you can respond more quickly through PR than through advertising, so we think it makes more sense to launch editorially first, in advertising second

There's also the question of which helps the other more. Here again, we see the news-then-ads sequence as most appropriate. News coverage can create an awareness of your products that triggers an "I've heard if that!" response when the reader first sees an ad. On the other hand, a reader may think "That's old, I've already seen an ad about it" if the ad precedes editorial coverage.

You may want to rethink your launch with these ideas in mind. If there's any chance at all that schedules will slip, hold the first ads to run only once products are about to ship. Let publicity efforts grab all the excitement they can to create a base of awareness, but time them so product reviews can happen relatively soon after announcement. And check industry announcement trends to avoid coming out at the same time as somebody with something big, or legions of little guys all vying for attention at once (like before a trade show).

And don't worry about who's first on the market with a particular whatever; it's a distinction that quickly evaporates. What do you know of the fortunes of the companies that launched the first computer spreadsheet? The first aspirin? The first motorcycle? The first piano? Make the timing right for you, not just a knee-jerk to your competitors.

The idea of any product marcomm program is to develop revenues. That means holding off large expenditures until revenues are possible, to commit strategic resources in time to make them possible, and to be clever and flexible in your plans and timing. This isn't just financially rewarding, it can be personally rewarding, especially as you recognize your own power over the marketplace.

If you have a major launch coming, now is the time to anticipate all the time and resources it can devour. That, alas, includes time it will steal from your loved ones. So perhaps you can bank a few extra hours with them now.