Work backwards, always
The launch date is the only fixed point. Everything before it is a dependency chain, and building it forwards from the brief is how a launch ends up with the pack ready and the dealer material three weeks late.
So the order of planning is: launch day, then dispatch, then kitting, then production, then proof approval, then artwork, then the approvals nobody inside the company controls.
The last of those is the one that decides your real start date.
Weeks 12 to 9: decide what it is
Positioning and the launch story. What the product is for, and why a dealer who already stocks three of your products and five of a competitor's should give it space.
Pack decisions: sizes, structure, and what the label must carry. If any of it is regulated, artwork for approval starts here, not later.
The list of what has to exist on launch day - pack, trade literature, dealer kit, point of sale, field material, sales-team material - agreed and written down. Everything after this is execution against that list.
Weeks 8 to 6: make it
Artwork master and every derivation from it. One family, not a dozen files.
Photography, if it is needed. This is where launches most often discover they have no usable images of their own product.
Regulated and legal content submitted, in parallel rather than in sequence. Structural dummies for anything folded or packed, checked in the hand.
Print quantities decided against outlet counts confirmed by sales - not estimated.
Weeks 5 to 3: produce
Proofs approved, then print and finishing: 5-10 working days for bulk work after approval.
Kitting per outlet, which takes a day or two for a few hundred outlets and saves considerably more downstream.
Sales-team briefing material finished before the sales team is briefed, which sounds obvious and frequently does not happen.
Site and event material for any launch event produced and packed by area.
Weeks 2 to 0: land it
Dispatch so everything arrives in the same week. A dealer who receives point of sale a fortnight before the product puts it away.
Launch event material delivered to the venue on the setup slot.
And a plan for the follow-up material, because a launch that lands and then goes quiet for a season loses the counter space it won.
Where launches actually slip
External approval, every time. It is the only block with no internal deadline attached to it, and it is the reason to start it in week 12 rather than week 8.
Outlet counts that change late, which turns a settled print quantity into a reprint.
Artwork changed after production. Deciding once - the name, the claim, the legal line - saves more than any negotiation on rate.
And a date that moves. It usually does. Because the schedule is explicit, a moved date is re-planned rather than absorbed silently until something is late.
