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Case Study: Analog Memory Becomes Real Killer App without Overwhelming Inventors
Challenge: Many firms have dreamed of launching a truly amazing new technology that everyone will absolutely have to have. Marketers who have had the chance to do just that learned how easy it is to become overwhelmed when a widely successful product launches without adequate planning.
Unregulated Marketing Is Not Necessarily a Good Thing
After Intel's Dr. Richard Simko invented the EPROM (electrically
programmable read-only memory), he came to believe that the
chip had much more versatility than simple digital non-volatile
data storage as used in today's PDAs, digital cameras and
USB jump drives. He was aware that EPROM memory cells were
not only excellent long-term storage devices (EPROMs hold
their charge for more than 10 years), they were also "gray
scale," or multilevel storage vaults.
In other words, if you could meter the amount of charge placed in each of millions of cells, the read-out process would exactly replicate the metering process. Voila! Analog memory was born. It gained the appropriate name ChipCorder®. Today's solid state players and thousands of other devices from cell phones, answering machines, dictation devices—even talking toys and greeting cards—that record and playback human audio have never sounded better.
Simko left Intel to form Information Storage Devices, Inc. (ISD). After his early-stage research led to first silicon and proof of concept, Simko needed to engage the market for traction and revenue as carefully as his invention stored information.
Avoid First Reaction to Shout Your Story to the World
ISD was tiny—fewer than 10 employees—when CommPros
Group Associate Partner Murry Shohat was brought in to guide
launch strategy. Its earliest working chips could record a
human voice and play it back with nearly perfect fidelity.
In 1990, this was amazing technology. Even though the company
was still negotiating for wafer fabrication services to fill
a non-existent supply chain, every engineer and marketer who
got wind of the development agreed that this tiny chip could
obsolete audio tape recording virtually overnight.
Working with the VP Marketing and CEO, Shohat developed a strategic plan to literally meter an announcement strategy so that ISD would not be overwhelmed.
The self-announcing launch plan was designed to preserve the company's limited resources while attracting strategic engineering-level partner/customers, rather than just curious and tactically driven profiteers.
The basic plan was completely operations-oriented to enable rapid, but not overwhelming, growth, while simultaneously securing a firm grasp on intellectual property to assure long-term ROI. The plan's central component involved taking advantage of Shohat's peer-level media contacts with the electronic engineering press.
A compact demonstration module was constructed, barely larger than a silver dollar, including all circuitry and a battery, plus a miniature speaker. With nothing more than the module in his briefcase, Shohat went on tour to a very short list of selected media, including Electronic Design, EDN and Electronic Products. He specifically avoided media that thrived on news, as opposed to engineering developments.
The first stop was Electronic Design in New Jersey. Shohat sat down in the editor's office, placed the tiny module on the desk and told his long-time colleague he'd talk about it in minute. Unseen was the button-press that put the device into record mode. He then asked the editor about his family and got the expected answers that characterize good friends catching up.
Shohat then pressed the nearly invisible Play button. The silver-dollar sized module spewed forth, in the editor's voice, the recorded conversation. The amazed editor (who, by the way, was proud of his reputation of being very difficult to impress) nearly fell off his chair. The PR result was a major exclusive color cover and lead feature article (Date and issue).
The next stop at EDN magazine resulted in even greater coverage, followed by a nomination for EDN's prized "Innovation and Innovator of the Year" Award. And that was just the beginning.
Fortunately, collateral and advertising were also crafted to meter the company's growth and not overwhelm business management. The strategy worked so well that huge volumes of these "talking chips" continue to be sold today by Information Storage Device's successor-in-interest, Winbond Electronics.
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