Elixir (Volume 1, Issue 10)
Midwifing the Rebirth
There’s no doubt that we live in a time of some pretty enormous economic challenges, but the good news is that we all have a gigantic ace-in-the-hole at our disposal, if only we know how to use it — innovation. That’s why Nectar is very proud to be associated as an expert advisor with Larta Institute, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit corporation devoted to nurturing new businesses in fields ranging from life sciences to IT.
With its slogan, “Connecting people to drive innovation,” Larta provides a host of services to help new businesses on the cutting edge and mentor them on a large range of issues facing growing firm today. The institute interacts with such governmental agencies as the National Institute of Health (NIH), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Department of Defense, as well as such multinational conglomerates as Procter & Gamble Healthcare, Johnson & Johnson, and Eli Lilly, thus helping entrepreneurs to stay up-to-date on the leading edge of information from both the private and public sectors. Just as important, the institute provides advice on a host of crucial day-to-day matters including patents and obtaining government grants, such as those offered by the USDA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) programs.
Nectar’s Vice President, Cary Chow, recently participated in a panel discussion on the interaction between technology, product development, and branding held at the Marriot Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. Speaking alongside Larta CEO Rohit Shukla, Farida Fotouhi of marketing firm Reality2, and Shawn Ramsey of Crossroads PR, Cary explained some of the user-based thinking that goes into branding and product development. Using the example of MP3 files as an innovative technology that lacked powerful mass market branding until Apple’s development of the iPod made the technology psychologically accessible to a broad audience, Cary described how entrepreneurs could think about innovation and technological progress in today’s world. Speaking to an audience largely drawn from the medical field, he also showed several examples of how Nectar has integrated branding into its product development approach for several of its healthcare clients.
Of course, insights like that are just one part of the jigsaw puzzle facing growing businesses in our current challenging, but still promising, climate. As Larta’s website explains:
Our mission is to vastly improve the transition of scientific and technological breakthroughs from the laboratory to the marketplace, where they can solve problems, enhance economic opportunities and better people’s lives.
All things considered, that’s about as important a mission as we’ve got right now. Thanks to Larta Institute for allowing Nectar to be a part of it.
The Mother of Reinvention
We all know that “reinventing the wheel” is supposed to be a waste of time. Suppose, however, that you actually had invented the wheel and, everywhere you went, your fellow cavepeople were using it like crazy to move stuff via Flintstones-style stone wheelbarrows – and now it was time to further capitalize on your invention or Mr. Slate would soon start issuing pink slip-tablets? Well, that’s when it would be time to think about new uses for the wheel, and it’s where clever marketing can really be a boon. With the right spin, maybe you could persuade someone to start using your reinvented wheels in rock-bicycles (or whatever they would have called them on the Flintstones).
That’s the situation our friends at C2C Group Marketing were trying to help their client, Clegg Promo, with not so long ago. Clegg had enjoyed great success with the talking sound chip, the now-ubiquitous device used in gag greeting cards and countless electronic doodads. That was great, of course, but now it was time for Clegg to generate a second life for their product. The answer was to create an alternative to the motion-trigger used to activate the sound chip, creating a device that would automatically activate and literally speak the instant it was hit by light. C2C then stepped in with the right packaging to show off the applications of the new chip to their best advantage, generating sales without the need for an expensive and time-consuming all-out sales push.
The moral, of course, is that if you have the right presentation, reinventing the wheel can make a lot of sense. For more of this kind of thinking, Tom Wein at C2C Group can be reached at twien@c2cgroupinc.com.
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