Branding and communications should be priorities for seedling technology ventures, but are often ignored.
A company’s ‘brand’ embraces name, products, logotypes, people and services. Stakeholders expect communications to be branded. But many start-ups make no budgetary provision for communications.
Enterprise Ireland offers branding advice to start-ups. Declan Lyons, manager of research, design and development, says: ‘The brand is what other people say and think you are. There are benefits to implementing an early stage branding strategy.’
As head of technology strategy at ACT Venture Capital, Dan Maher advises on investments. When deciding whether to invest in a company, he looks at its technology, the level of protection, and the potential market: ‘The engineering of the product is usually right, but the market interface – the position, look and feel and documentation for the product – has to be designed, and communications design – how a company is seen from a distance – has to be incorporated.
‘What we have discovered is that if there are two companies with equally good products, then the ‘sales battle’ moves from inside the product to the outside. Eventually it is carried out completely in the communications area.’
Communication of the brand becomes more important as a company matures. Instrumentation, automation, engineering and construction specialist, Lotus Automation, was established in Sligo in 1989 with a staff of three. It now has 150 employees in Ireland and 100 in the US. At first little attention was paid to branding; there was no communications manager and the brand developed on an ad hoc basis. In 2003 they embarked on a brand identity project with Dublin-based consultancy, Designworks. Enterprise Ireland part-funded the 18 month branding project. Press interest in Lotus Automation increased in 2006. Media queries are now handled by the CEO and a sales and marketing manager.
The European Commission also stresses the importance of public information for technology companies. Jean-Michel Baer, director-general for research, says: ‘Researchers focus too much on their peers rather than the public.’
A company’s public information officers (PIOs) should be ‘science allies’. Ideally they will be scientists or technologists with journalistic training or experience.
Contact Teresa Meagh on +353 1 206 6337 to Subscribe and get the full article.