Just show me how to switch it on

In the past few months, I've been working on a few brand and product launches. From an agency angle, there's only so much you can do to influence the outcome as you tend to make recommendations more often than decisions.

Launching a brand is like giving birth. It's vital to remember that it's the start of something wonderful, not just the end of the most painful experience of your life.

But all too often when it comes to brands, people focus purely on the latter: let's just get it out there and hope everything will work out fine. Oh, and the quicker the better.

Job done.

But actually the job is not done, it has only just begun. Much like babies, brands do not function on autopilot. And it's not simply a question of switching them on.

Firstly, things change.

Constancy is a rare luxury in today's world, but too many people assume that tomorrow will be much like today. Call it myopic, call it a fear of the future, call it sheer stupidity, but change can often touch a raw nerve. "Launch a brand to last for the next 10 years" is a common cry, when what they actually mean to say is "design a logo and let's pray that nothing changes between now and the time I leave for my next job".

The reality is that change can provide overwhelming opportunities to carve out competitive advantage. Just ask any of the bank brands that have pounced on the weak and the weather-beaten to turn a bad situation into a better one. It goes without saying that the banks would have preferred constancy and that change has been forced upon them, but struggling against change is tough (if not impossible), and there is more to be gained from funneling the winds of change than trying to force them back.

Your industry will shift. Your customers will change. Your brand will mature. But will you evolve? Or will you simply stick to the brief, work to the deadline and, as soon as you have flicked the switch, put all your faith in fate and fickle fortune? I hope not.

Secondly, people have short memories.

It doesn't matter how many balloons fill the room at the launch party, pretty soon no one will remember the helium from the hot air.

Customers actually deal with change pretty well. They tend to take it all in the stride because they've seen it all before. The packaging has changed, there's a sticker screaming "new" and "improved", and all of a sudden, as a merchant, you've got a reason to score some extra shelf space in the supermarket.

But if there isn't a real and relevant reason to keep consumers interested, they will all too quickly switch off, or switch onto something more appealing. Brands need to keep giving people reasons to stay loyal and come back, not simply expect that past sales curves are an accurate reflection of future sales performance. The first impression that you make does count, but not quite as much as the last one that you leave them with. You only have to look at Nike to see how a brand can stick to the same story but retell it in so many fresh and different ways – and ways that not only stretch to new audiences but even reach out to new generations.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, brands live forever.

While a sale is simply a transaction, a brand is an experience. And experiences create memories – good and bad, fond and forgettable.

In fact, you don't really own your brand, your customers do. They are the ones who make the real decisions about whether you succeed or fail with every move that they make. They decide how loyal they will be, they decide between you or your competitors, they decide what they will tell their friends about you.

Your role is to influence their decisions. And it should come as no surprise that those decisions don't all get made at the very moment that you launch your brand. Far from it.

So that's it. You can't just switch on a brand one day and expect it to light up the sky the next. I know that sounds obvious, but then too often I see brands built to launch, but not necessarily last.