How-to
How to Check a New Product Launch Is Being Pitched in Every Store
A launch is planned for months and lives or dies in the first two weeks on the floor. Head office knows the stock arrived and the displays went up. It does not know whether advisors are mentioning the product, pitching the right features, quoting the offer correctly, or handling the first objections. That is discovered in month two from the sales numbers, when it is too late to fix the pitch. This guide covers what to measure in week one and what changes when the launch conversation is observed.
Why sell-in and displays do not tell you
Sell-in tells you the product reached the store. The display audit tells you the standee is up. Neither tells you what the advisor says when a customer walks in, or whether the customer hears about the product at all. Advisors pitch what they are comfortable with, and a new product with a new argument is rarely that in week one.
What to measure in the first week
- Mention rate: the share of relevant conversations in which the new product or offer was raised at all.
- Pitch accuracy: the key features and the offer terms presented correctly, not the old price or last month's bonus.
- First objections, in customers' words, so the counter can be trained in week one rather than guessed in month two.
- Conversion on conversations where the product was pitched versus those where it was not.
- Store and region variation, so the trainer goes where the pitch is weakest.
What changes when the launch is observed
With consented conversations captured, the launch has a daily readout from day one: where it is being pitched, how accurately, and what customers say back. The brand or category team fixes the argument in the first week. Regional trainers visit the stores that are not mentioning the product, with the evidence. The offer terms are checked in real conversations rather than in a compliance email nobody reads. And the best launch pitch in the network becomes the trained pitch for everyone by the end of week one.
On the floor
A durables brand launches a new range with an exchange bonus. By day three, the conversations show the bonus quoted at the wrong amount in one region, and the range not mentioned at all in a quarter of relevant conversations in another. Both are corrected within the week. The launch review in month two is about what worked, not about why the numbers were behind.
Frequently asked questions
Can brands see launch execution at third-party retailers?
Brands with their own promoters at the counter can capture those conversations with consent and see mention rate and pitch accuracy for their launch directly.
How quickly is a launch readout available?
From the first day conversations are captured. A meaningful store-level picture needs a few days of coverage.
Does this cover offers as well as products?
Yes. An offer is a pitch with terms; whether the terms are quoted correctly is the most common launch failure.
Related reading
Where Borentis applies this
- Launch & Offer Execution: Know your launch landed, on day one.
- Playbook Adherence: Your playbook, finally observed.
- Brand Voice-of-Customer: The focus group hiding in plain sight.
Borentis is the Agentic Operating System for Customer Interactions, built for Indian retail floors: consented one-tap capture on the advisor's phone, every conversation scored against your playbook with the evidence behind every number, leads created when a number is heard, and coaching from your own best conversations.