Silicon Valley: Branding Headquarters for the Innovation Economy

   

One of the greatest success factors for the U.S. in general and Silicon Valley in particular is the significance placed upon marketing and positioning by its leading businesses and institutions. The high-tech industry in the U.S. has taken the lead in marketing and positioning by companies such as Dell, Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, HP, and many others. Regional wealth creation can be greatly enhanced through skilled use of marketing which can be adapted for successful enterprises ” companies, regions , and organizations.

One example of successful branding and marketing is the Agilent Technologies spin-off from Hewlett-Packard (now officially renamed HP) which at the time was the largest new company introduction in the history of Silicon Valley. This section addresses lessons learned in branding. We will explore the dynamics of positioning a region to attract foreign direct investment in Chapter 7, "The Branding of Ireland."

What Is Positioning and Why Is It So Important in the Innovation Economy?

Positioning may be defined as the purposeful creation of value in a consumer's mind. Usually, positioning will differentiate one brand over others in a category so the consumer will have a more positive inclination to purchase and use that brand. Successful positioning must answer a marketing problem. That problem may be defined in terms of:

  • Justifying a premium price (as in the semiconductor industry "Intel Inside" campaign)

  • Differentiating a product or service (as in the hand-held personal assistant devices "Simply Palm" campaign)

  • Changing an attitude about a brand we may already know (as in the business solutions Internet category, changing the perception of Cisco from introducing the "Internet ” Are You Ready?" campaign to providing product specific solutions for business in their subsequent "Empowering the Internet Generation" campaign)

  • Establishing an identity for either a new category or a brand that requires credibility (as the establishment of Agilent in the "Dreams Made Real" campaign)

Technology- intensive companies have products and services based on continuing advances in science and technical know-how. Managing marketing for these companies is complex because they require speed to market with continual innovation and change. These markets are characterized by great risk:

  • A particular product can be surpassed in function (such as cell phones superceding pagers ).

  • The product can be substituted by another whole category (such as 3 ½-inch disks replacing 5-inch floppy disks for personal computers).

  • The product can be bundled in some other category package (such as when word processing software was included in office suites' software packages, which then became bundled as part of the software in personal computer packages).

Another major challenge is to be able to differentiate the role one brand plays in the context of others, since factors such as partnering, mergers, and outsourcing are much more common in the technology industry than in traditional market categories.

Regions of the world are also complex environments, defying simplification and jingoism. Do conventional marketing disciplines apply to companies who seek brand leadership in innovative technology or to regions of the world seeking to establish credibility in the global marketplace ? If so, then what is similar and different about technology and regional marketing from traditional commercial products and services such as fast food?

Most people acknowledge that, for brands such as McDonald's and Coca-Cola, marketing and advertising play a critical role in establishing a successful business franchise that dominates their respective categories. Can marketing and advertising be utilized successfully in the same way in innovative technology industries and in regions as they are in selling hamburgers and soft drinks? Silicon Valley companies and institutions have pioneered successful adaptations of traditional marketing for the Innovative Economy.

The Difference Between Commercial Product Positioning and Technology/Regional Positioning

The principles of positioning in marketing and advertising apply to technology companies and regions just as surely as they do to commercial packaged goods products.

The key difference is that technology innovation moves so quickly relative to commercial products that the emphasis on branding and positioning in technology must focus on the needs of the market to be fulfilled and positioning ahead of actual product availability . Thus the umbrella positioning of Agilent goes beyond any particular testing solutions or products they sell today. This is not true of traditional product companies such as Coca-Cola or McDonald's, whose products are widely familiar and where the challenge is to create a brand awareness and positive perception that helps to differentiate what is essentially a commodity product.

Regional advertising and positioning also follows the principles of commercial advertising and marketing. The challenge in regional positioning is that it must integrate with government, societal institutions, organized labor, and regional policy that may be more difficult to coordinate than in commercial sector private company decision making.

   


Creating Regional Wealth in the Innovation Economy. Models, Perspectives, and Best Practices
Creating Regional Wealth in the Innovation Economy: Models, Perspectives, and Best Practices
ISBN: 0130654159
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 237

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