New Product Launch Evolution: BIC and Profitero Share How To Lead With Omnichannel Digital Shelf Tactics

Launching a new product has always been a high-stakes game. Get it right, and you’ve got a growth engine that can lift your entire category. Get it wrong, and you’ve sunk months — maybe even years — into something that never gets off the dock.

In 2025, the game is tougher than ever. The digital shelf has changed the way shoppers discover, evaluate, and buy products. The old launch playbooks simply don’t cut it anymore. You’re competing against rival brands, a sea of third-party sellers, shifting algorithms, and customers who share instant, unfiltered feedback with the world.

At Salsify’s 2025 Digital Shelf Summit (DSS), Mike Black, chief growth officer at Profitero, and Laura Hyland, global vice president of digital and commercial strategy at BIC, took to the stage to break it all down.

They offered a rare combination of hard data and in-the-trenches stories, providing expert advice on everything from how quickly to seed reviews to why you should launch online months before hitting store shelves. Here are their main takeaways.

The High Stakes of Today’s Product Launches

A staggering 70–90% of new products fail. But when you get it right, the payoff can be massive. Hyland notes that the most successful launches in 2023 delivered an 18% boost in multi-outlet sales.

There’s just one issue: Successful product launches have never been more challenging.

Just a few years ago, ecommerce brands were only competing against a handful of in-store products. Today, they’re launching into a crowded digital shelf with thousands of SKUs and an army of third-party sellers all jostling for attention.

Standing out comes with a heavier price tag, too. Your brand has to fund retail media, always-on content updates, and algorithm-friendly product pages. And the shoppers you’re selling to are more informed than before. They can instantly access every glowing review and scathing complaint — and they’re willing to share their own experiences just as quickly.

As Black puts it, the challenge (and the opportunity) is “bridging the gap between ecommerce execution and product innovation.” A great idea isn’t enough. How you activate it across the digital shelf determines whether it becomes a category driver or gets lost in the scroll.

Hyland adds that many brands are still approaching launches through the lens of the “in-store shopper,” but the reality is that we now serve the omnishopper. That requires brands to build a strategy in which every channel is part of a unified plan. “Behind the scenes, it’s a huge amount of heavy lifting,” Hyland says. “Content doesn’t just live on your [product detail page] PDP anymore. It’s everywhere.”

In other words, the product launch landscape has changed, and so must the way brands play the game.

4 Pillars of High-Performing Launches

Black’s research and Hyland’s real-world examples converged on four core pillars that can make the difference between a “speedboat” launch (fast, visible, and sustainable) and a “steamboat” that never gains real momentum.

1. Quickly Established Trust

On the digital shelf, trust is currency and reviews are the mint. No matter how eye-catching your creative or how competitive your pricing, if shoppers don’t see proof from other buyers, they’ll hesitate to click “add to cart.”

As Hyland and Black note:

• Products that hit 50 reviews within their first year are far more likely to be “speedboats.”
• Reaching that 50-review threshold quickly delivers a bigger sales boost than slow accumulation.

Here are some strategies to help you get there:

• Tap retailer programs like Amazon Vine or Walmart Review Accelerator to jumpstart review volume.
• Partner with review syndicators such as Bazaarvoice or PowerReviews to push feedback across channels.
• Launch online three months before in-store to seed content and credibility before your physical shelf debut.

According to Hyland, BIC has made early online launches part of its playbook. By the time a product hits an in-store retailer like Walmart, it already has a polished PDP and more than 50 reviews — often at a 4-plus star rating — which gives shoppers immediate confidence to purchase.

Pro tip: Don’t just chase reviews, read them. For example, early reviews for laundry pods showed an issue that risked damaging clothes, Hyland says. In response, BIC added “how-to-use” videos and updated packaging instructions before a broader in-store rollout.

2. Maximum Cross-Channel Reach

Visibility starts with search, and we’re not just talking about the digital shelf here. Physical placement still matters. True product launch momentum comes from showing up consistently and competitively everywhere your shoppers might look.

According to Hyland and Black:

• “Speedboats” reach organic page one in search within 95 days and stay there.
• Two-thirds of underperformers never hit page one at all.

Here are some strategies that will help:

• Prepare your content for launch day using best-seller benchmarks, such as ideal title length and bullet structure.
• Integrate target keywords pre-launch to optimize your PDP for sales.
• Pair organic and paid strategies. Consider conquesting competitor listings when they’re out of stock or priced high.

When BIC relaunched its iconic four-color pen in the U.S., for example, the brand tied it to Amazon’s back-to-school tentpole, which was one of its biggest seasonal drivers. A national campaign featuring Charlie Puth created buzz, while Amazon placement and omnichannel creative made sure the product seemed like it was everywhere at once. 

3. Aligned Teams and Retail Partners

If your brand, sales, digital, and retail media aren’t aligned, or if your online and offline retail strategies are disconnected, you’ll miss out on the good stuff that happens when everything works together. Hyland and Black say that 70% of consumer-packaged goods companies cite silos as their top barrier to launch success.

Here’s how to avoid this problem:

• Use Amazon insights to inform Walmart or Target activations.
• Integrate national brand campaigns with retail media plans to connect every touch point.
• Collaborate with retailers early to get organic placement or in-store features alongside paid support.

4. Real-Time Monitoring and Adapting

Search rankings, competitor pricing, and shopper behavior can change overnight. The brands keeping an eye on the right signals and reacting fast are the ones that protect their momentum and margins before small issues snowball.

Here are some key metrics to track:

• Ratings/reviews velocity: Are you still earning fresh feedback post-launch?
• Organic search placement: Are you holding page one or slipping?
• Average selling price: Are third-party sellers or competitor price drops eroding your margins?
• Promotion cadence and conversion lift: Which offers are driving the most efficient sales?

BIC once used online performance data to negotiate better in-store placement, says Hyland. By proving it had 75% higher market share online than in-store at a major retailer, BIC built a compelling case for more ecommerce placements using the retailer’s own data.

Pro tip: Use generative AI to keep content fresh without overwhelming your team. You can apply seasonal keyword swaps, like “summer shave,” “holiday gifting,” and “back to school,” across 100-plus PDPs in minutes, keeping your products relevant year-round.

5 Steps To Build Long-Term Launch Velocity

Building a great product is only half the battle. Keeping the momentum is where the real work begins. These five product launch strategies will help you accelerate launch velocity and keep it going long after the initial buzz fades.

1. Audit Your Current Launch Process

Take an honest look at how quickly you’re hitting key milestones like 50-plus reviews, organic page-one placement, and cross-team alignment. Where are the bottlenecks? Where do silos slow you down? Map your current process against the four pillars to see where you’re strong and where you’re leaving sales on the table.

2. Launch Online Before You Launch In-Store

Use that headstart to seed reviews, test content, and iron out any issues that shoppers call out. By the time your product hits the physical shelf, it should already have a polished PDP, a healthy star rating, and a bank of authentic reviews to boost shopper confidence.

3. Align Retail Media With Your National Campaigns

If your brand team is running a big push on TV or social media, make sure that energy shows up on the digital shelf, too. Coordinate campaign elements so that shoppers who search after seeing your ad can easily find your product.

4. Put Digital Shelf Data To Work

Monitor your key performance indicators daily. If you’re slipping in search rankings, seeing average selling price erosion from third-party sellers, or losing review velocity, you can act before these issues become serious problems. And when things are going well, that same data can help you tell a stronger growth story to retail buyers.

5. Treat Core Products Like They’re New Launches

Apply the same energy and optimization discipline to your proven winners as you do to shiny new SKUs. Refresh content, retest keywords, and re-evaluate placement opportunities, because there’s often untapped growth hiding in your existing portfolio.

Turn Your Next Launch Into a Speedboat

The launch game isn’t getting easier. Shopper attention is shorter, competition is louder, and the cost of standing out is higher. But the brands that master fast trust-building, omnichannel reach, and tight, coordinated execution will launch more “speedboats” and leave more “steamboats” behind at the dock.

If you take away one thing from Black and Hyland’s session, it should be this: You don’t need to transform everything overnight. Pick one of the four pillars, find a quick win you can execute in the next 90 days, and prove the value. The momentum will follow.