How marketing can build demand for cutting-edge technology.

1. Turning new technologies into must-haves
How marketing can build demand for cutting-edge tech
By Sarah Brown

2. The history of technology is full of ideas or inventions
that were initially dismissed as unworkable until finally
their viability became so clear it seemed silly to have
doubted them in the first place.

3. “Well-informed people know
it is impossible to transmit the
voice over wires and that were
it possible to do so, the thing
would be of no practical value.”
Editorial in the Boston Post, 1865

4. “Heavier than air flying
machines are impossible.”
Lord Kelvin, pioneer in thermodynamics
and electricity, 1895

5. “Man will never reach the moon,
regardless of all scientific advances.”
Lee DeForest, inventor of the vacuum tube, 1957

6. The difficult reality is that the more innovative the
technology, the more it departs from traditional ways of
doing things, then the more people may distrust it.
Technologies can fall into a chicken and egg trap in
which the technology cannot prove it works if people
won’t try it, and people won’t try it until they believe it
works.

7. How can technologies break out of this vicious cycle of
distrust and prove their viability?
To reference Moore’s model of technology diffusion, how
do some technologies gain adoption not just by those
rare souls willing to take a risk on cutting-edge tech
but, rather, by the prudent majority who will invest in
only proven technology? (Moore calls this ‘crossing the
chasm.’)

8. We’ve developed a model that maps each step in the
journey to winning the market’s confidence in your tech
product and, ultimately, achieving broad adoption.
We map the technologies potential, the level to which it
can disrupt markets and create competitive advantage,
against the confidence the audience has in it being
sucessfuly deployed.

9. The Bright Blue Day Model of Technology Adoption
Siren Songs Stars
High Potential
Strategy: Build trust Strategy: Broaden use
Technology offers fundamental
improvement to customers’ IT or Cloud Server virtualisation
delivers competitive advantage Software as a Service Video conferencing
Low Potential Dogs Cash Cows
While beneficial or even critical, Strategy: Dump Strategy: Milk
technology does little to Virtual Reality Barcodes
fundamentally transform IT or offer Wi-Fi
competitive advantage
Low Confidence High Confidence
Target audience is confident that the
Target audience lacks confidence that the technology can be successfully deployed
technology can be successfully deployed

10. Marketers tasked with building demand for a Siren Song A common mistake in marketing Siren Songs is to shout
should focus on convincing the target audience that about the technology’s benefits without offering proof that
the technology will deliver what it promises. We call this the technology works. Unfortunately for the marketers of
‘crossing the trust gap’. Only by first crossing the trust gap Siren Songs, buyers willing to take a chance on a new and
can a technology gain widespread adoption. unproven technology are a minority. A technology must
prove its viability before it can hope to attain broad usage.
Siren Songs Stars
Unless a technology crosses
the ‘trust gap’, it will not
achieve broad adoption
High Potential Start Crossing the trust gap
Technology is proven
Audience gains confidence
Te
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Cr
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th bro
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us ad
ag
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ga
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Low Potential
n
Dogs Cash Cows
Low Confidence High Confidence

11. What can you do to help your technology cross the trust gap?
Here are 4 strategies:
Strategy Tactics Examples Could this work for you?
Prove success • Understand the audience’s objections and concerns • At HP’s Meet the Experts sessions, prospects can • Is it possible to prove the success of the product with
• Prove the technology’s viability in ways the speak directly to technical experts about products’ concrete examples?
audience will find convincing such as references, viability • Can you lead a frank discussion of the applicability
demonstrations, or independent reviews • Microsoft’s I Hate CRM campaign directly of your technology? Can you provide a framework
• There are few marketing tools so powerful as a case acknowledged the audience’s frustrations with CRM for helping prospects decide if the technology is
study that closely matches a prospect’s situation. Build – and showed how Microsoft’s CRM addresses these appropriate for their situation?
a library of case studies segmented by industry and issues
issue
Encourage trial • Bundle the product with others, give it away free, • Microsoft sponsored a competition for the best work • Does trialling your product tend to breed confidence or
or incentivise use using its new web design suite create habitual use?
• Make it as easy as possible for the audience to try your • Many online services such as Spotify offer free basic • What would it take to get the audience to try your
product; for example, go where the audience is versions of their product and encourage upgrade product? How can you make trial possible in practical
• Many software companies bundle new products with terms?
established products
Lead the debate • Have a voice on the issues your technology addresses. • IBM publicises the results of its C-suite surveys, giving • How could your company provide insight or new
Be a thought leader through white papers, seminars, IBM voice and visibility in discussions of myriad IT perspectives on the issues IT audiences care about –
PR, etc. issues and that your technology addresses?
• Understand the importance of word of mouth. Know • Nortel coined the concept of ‘hyperconnectivity’
what’s being said about you and make sure you are to seize the initiative in debates about unified
part of the conversation communications
• Find the ‘mavens’, the respected authorities who lead
opinion, and partner with them
Provide a • Let the audience freely explore how your technology • EMC’s Solution Centres enable visitors to design and • Could testing your product allay people’s concerns or
safe place to works and how it might help them test any architecture without risk help them understand its benefits?
experiment • Enable the audience to decide for themselves about • Chevron’s Energyville site lets users experiment with • How can you make this possible?
your technology’s pros and cons cutting-edge energy technologies