The setup

Kristin was the Director of Operations and Inventory Planning at Skylar, a clean fragrance brand founded by former Honest Company VP Ops Cat Chen.

After 3 years of operations, Cat decided to initiate a rebrand to elevate Skylar products to the point where they could sit on the same shelves as the top luxury brands.

Cat hired a new CMO to lead the initiative. The company was around 20 employees at this time.

What happened

The rebrand broke down into multiple key sub-projects:

• New SKU redesign — Skylar’s Head of Product led the charge on designing new fragrances and getting them produced by contract manufacturers.

• New SKU roll-out — old inventory had to be sold down and retired, and new inventory sent to 3PLs, all in coordinated with the re-launch date to avoid stockouts.

• Brand update — Changes to colors, logos, typefaces, etc. across the whole brand.

• Packaging re-design — The physical implications of the brand-redesign were expressed in bottles, shipping packaging, and other physical collateral.

• Website redesign — The company’s digital store also needed a full update to reflect the brand.

Each sub-project had a team lead — marketing, ops, product, engineering, etc. Team leads met regularly, with lots of coordination from the CEO.

The packaging re-design was one of the major areas where marketing interacted with operations. There were many conversations about the trade-offs between packaging sustainability, packaging margin, and design quality. Skylar ended up opting for premium packaging for the launch; once that sold down, they switched to more sustainable Kraft on the outside with elevated design and materials inside.

There was only one major close call during the operation: an LTL shipment of product that was required to be in stock during the launch was lost in transit. The team went all hands on deck to call every transit hub in the Eastern US, talking to truck drivers, warehouse managers, and anyone else they could get ahold of. Eventually they found the shipment and rushed it to the 3PL in time for launch.

Results

👉 Skylar successfully relaunched with and elevated brand image and packaging.

👉 After the launch had “stuck the landing,” they were able to walk back some of their margin trade-offs by replacing premium packaging with more rugged and sustainable designs.

Key lessons

✅ Treat re-branding like a full-company operation (because it is).

One thing Skylar did very well was to bring the whole team together on the project from Day 1. All too often, marketing teams plan packaging changes without talking to ops, ops updates SOPs without considering the tech implications, and so on. Having a CEO who can rally all teams and keep them in regular communication is key.

✅ Give tie-breakers to the design team.

You don’t get a re-do on your first impression with a new customer. Nicer packaging is expensive, but if you’re trying to upscale your brand, it’s often worth the hit to margins. After the new brand is set in people’s minds, you have more flexibility to change packaging without ruining your brand image.

✅ Test your new packaging in the mail before production.

How a package looks on the screen is very different from how it looks after it’s been through the mail system. Always test your new packaging through the mail before committing to full production. Some early versions of Skylar’s packaging “looked like they’d been run over by a truck” after shipping, leading to modifications. This is especially important if influencers or unboxing are part of your strategy.

✅ If timing is tight, pay up for reliable shipping.

Timing for a launch is always tricky — your marketing campaigns, website relaunch, new product and new packaging all have to be ready at the exact same time. If you’re running on a tight timeline with high-value inventory, consider using premium shipping services like FTL or FCL to make sure you have full visibility and control over the movement of your goods.