The Illusion of Completion

There’s a wonderful sense of satisfaction that comes with calling something done.

The build is finished. The decks are approved. The programme is live. Everyone exhales. The hard bit is over.

Except it isn’t.

Too often, I’ve seen brilliant projects vanish just as they’re meant to begin. You hit the final milestone, and someone on the client side says with polite confidence, “We’ll handle the rollout internally.”

And sure, sometimes they’re right. They plan early, budget properly, and launch with the same care they brought to the build. I love working with clients like this.

But they are the exception.

More often than not, the project goes live, then vanishes into thin air. Not because it’s weak, but because the client wasn’t prepared to land it.

As an agency, we can create something that tells a story, changes a behaviour, and fulfills the brief. But when it comes to making a real impact, there’s still work to be done. The last mile makes all the difference. And it’s the one most often overlooked.

3 non-negotiables (unless you enjoy wasting money)

1. Define success by adoption, not launch day

Just because something is live doesn’t mean it’s alive. The real win isn’t pushing it out. It’s people actually using it, talking about it, referencing it unprompted six weeks later.

Set your success metric as: “Would someone quote this back to me in a meeting?”

Run a short pulse survey two weeks after launch. Ask, “Have you used this? Can you name it? What stuck?”

If you’re met with silence, you’ve launched a ghost.

2. Plan a multi-touch, multi-channel campaign

People don’t remember things the first time. Or the second. Especially if it arrives at 3:46 p.m. between a Zoom call and a fire drill.

Repetition isn’t annoying. It’s how memory works. Think campaign, not comms drop.

Repurpose the same message for different contexts: email, Slack, leadership intro, lunchroom posters, manager talking points.

If it feels like overkill, it’s probably just enough.

3. Budget for rollout from the start

If it’s not in the brief, it’s in the bin. Internal initiatives die quietly when there’s no budget to help them breathe after they go live.

Treat rollout as part of the product, not the postscript. Take tangible action: earmark at least 15–20% of the total project budget for launch and adoption activity.

If that feels steep, ask what you’d spend to rescue it three months later.

3 deceptively sensible mistakes

1. The myth of effortless reach

You send the email. A great subject line, maybe a gif. And then nothing. We don’t live in inboxes anymore. We live in black holes. One message doesn’t land. Two won’t either.

Then again, mindless repetition won’t help you either: AI has made it easier than ever to send more, but not to get noticed.

What to do instead: Plan for clever repetition. Five to seven touchpoints, varied formats, staggered timing. Different messengers sending the same message.

Track not just opens, but what sticks: usage, recall, and behavioural signs that the message landed.

2. The false finish line

A lot of people assume that once something exists, it will matter. It won’t. That brilliant, useful piece of work is only alive when people use it. And they won’t use it just because it’s clever.

What to do instead: Treat launch as act one. Success lies in adoption. Look for proof: is it being used, referenced, built into habits?

Design your comms to make it impossible to ignore. Contextually, not just visually.

3. The cost of assumed knowledge

One of the most common blind spots: my audience will understand this.

But behavioural science tells us otherwise. The illusion of transparency means we overestimate how clear or obvious something is to others.

The rule of seven still holds. People need to hear something multiple times before it sticks. Today, that number might be 10 or 12.

What to do instead: Don’t just explain it once. Repeat, reinforce, reframe. Measure retention over time. Is it still showing up in conversations? Is it embedded, or just launched?

Look, it’s not too late

Even if you’re approaching launch and realising you don’t have a plan to make it land, there’s still time.

Start where you are:

• Look at the next 4–6 weeks and design a simple, multi-touch plan.
• Brief your managers. Give them one thing to say and one action to take
• Pick three channels where your audience already pays attention, and reframe your message there
• And measure what matters now: are people using it, repeating it, embedding it?

You don’t need a full re-launch. You need a second wave, with more thought behind it than the first.

Because yes, you’re a little late.

But you’re also right on time to make sure this doesn’t become another brilliant idea no one remembers.

Good luck!