We launched Capsule Studio in the middle of the current global pandemic, so we quickly had to throw our initial plans for a launch party out of the window. We focused purely on online for the first few months, but as the situation looked a bit better in June, we started planning our first product launch event. In this blog post we wish to tell you about how we went ahead and organised this event, and how it all worked out.
Limitations
We always knew we wanted to let potential customers try on the suits, but due to the limitations and social distancing rules in place, we had to rethink the concept of the event. Instead of organising an event for friends and customers, we decided to organise a social event for influencers, bloggers, and journalists, so we could maximise the visibility for the brand, while minimising the amount of guests and people involved.
We also had to organise the event with a strict budget in place, since we are a small brand, we couldn't justify renting a huge location, or hire a DJ or a band, instead we aimed to do as much as possible, with as little money as possible. We think the results were great, but more on that later.
We also had a time constraint to think of. We started planning the event in late June, and wanted to have it around the middle of July so that there would still be some summer weeks left after the event. Our big goal was to create visibility for the brand, but launching a collection of pastel coloured suits in September might not be the best idea. With only two weeks to go until the planned date, we had to get busy.
Partners
In order to organise a fun and colourful event to match our products, while still keeping the budget as close to zero as possible, we decided to look around us for other small businesses to partner up with. We built a case around the event centered around visibility on social media, since we would only invite social media influencers, bloggers, and journalists, we believed that this type of event would be interesting for other small businesses looking to increase their social media presence. We had immediate success with Flowers and Powers - our goals were already well aligned, and their flower shop was like a match made in heaven for our pastel collection. We agreed to organise the event in the form of a dry flower bouquet workshop, where all attendees would get to make their own bouquet of dry flowers, which they would be able to take home with them after the event. Catering was generously provided by Brittons Bakery & Cakery and photography by our favourite photographer Kate.
All in all the purpose of partnering up with other local brands was to find partners who share the same goals, and all are prepared to bring something to the table.
Event & Aftermath
The event itself happened on the 22nd of July, and was from all points of view a great success. We managed in a short timeframe to organise a great event with a minimal budget. We had a 0% no show rate, meaning we had been able to translate our vision of the event into a compelling invitation, and the feedback from both attendees and partners after the event was all around positive. Around 800 pictures were taken between two photographers, not including various selfies and group pictures by the attendees, who all had a lot of fun by the looks of it.
The results of the event were in line with our expectations, we achieved a social reach of about 100.000 people, increased our Instagram followers by 20%, and got enough content for our own social media to last us the next year out. From the attendees we only gathered positive feedback, which gives us lots of energy to create such events in the future as well.
As a final note we conclude that the event was a success by all measures, and we are already in the middle of planning our next launch event for our Fall 2020 collection, but more on that later.