How to Differentiate Start-up Technology in Europe
By Andrew Lloyd & Jacque Noels
The Company has achieved revenue momentum by penetrating early adopting commercial segments like electronic shelving, supplying these applications using pilot manufacturing facilities it had developed during early forays into the traditional LCD market. But there are a number of competitive challenges for the Company. First, the hockey stick of zero power LCD growth keeps moving to the right. E-paper was originally over-hyped as the replacement for paper in book and consumer applications. This hasn't happened, and e-paper continues to be regarded as a promising, but "too costly" alternative by potential mainstream customers and influencers. Also, there exists an array of confusing competing low power display technologies, as well as a strong direct competitor in the U.S. with slightly different technical attributes, and with the backing of a multi-national consumer products brand partner.
How Technology Marketing Course Concepts Apply
The Company's original response to the competitive landscape, much like any technology-driven start-up, was to focus its relatively small marketing budget on technology advantage messages like "best image contrast", and to market this differentiation primarily to technical influencers in the LCD industry. Outside the LCD technical community there was confusion about technical nuances, and a sense of unmet promise. The Company decided that it needed a new Positioning strategy: communication of real growth in early market segments, and a new Differentiation message that would both set the Company apart from competition, and support the perception of e-paper as a viable investment opportunity. Finally, it was very important that this message be heard beyond the LCD technical audience.
To put it in sales terms: the Company's growth was retarded both by skepticism about low power LCD technology as a category, and by a proliferation of technical differentiation messages from the gaggle of would-be suppliers, which then added to the perception of risk and to e-paper adoption cost to sort out competing claims. The Company determined that, even on a start-up marketing budget, the message had to move from just head-to-head technical comparison toward marketing on behalf of the e-paper category overall.
