Ambition

A much-honored information technology company founder and CEO looked for ways to grow revenues and increase the market value of his company.

The company, WeatherData, pioneered pinpoint site-specific weather warning technologies to minimize risk for companies faced with recurring time-sensitive business factors, such as supply chain management, logistics, and entertainment event crowd safety, in industries such as airlines, transportation, automotive and manufacturing.

Action

We focused on the client's core capability, that of new technology development, as a competitive white space opportunity for growth, combined with the need to reframe the company's entry-point narrative to increase market awareness with the unavailable-elsewhere benefits of the client's business intelligence.

As we began our engagement we noted the client had created no portfolio of patented intellectual property, even though on the leading edge of assisting Fortune 500s and other business enterprises in their time-sensitive and mission-critical decision making, by providing a key missing link: location-precise climate information technology.

Among other results, we created the client's technology patent development and commercialization strategy.

Own The Conversation® Results

The client grew from owning zero patented technologies to today ownership of 21 U.S. and foreign patents in the fields of storm warnings, search and rescue, and emergency management.

As a result, WeatherData grew in sales and market value, leading to accomplishing the founder's exit strategy through acquisition by AccuWeather Inc. The two companies more recently integrated as AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions, creating the leading climate intelligence provider to business in the world.

Working with our prescient client CEO exposed a market gap and brand strategy years ahead of its time, as easily seen today.

Published in Work

Ambition

A company founded in 2000 based on a video technology passion, one endowed with a vision by it's founders capable of succeeding through wildly fluctuating business cycles, was ready for the next step.

Transformed into a fast growth multinational technology company, BigBand Networks was moving toward an IPO launch.

BigBand operated development centers for video products in Tel Aviv, Israel, data and voice products in Westborough, Massachusetts, and extended research and development in Shenzhen, China. It sold video, voice and data solutions directly to major cable Multi-System Operators / MSOs. BigBand's MSO clients included Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, Cox, and Verizon.

The company's products include a digital video processing platform labeled BMR, and a Cable Modem Termination System [CMTS] named Cuda, based on a range of patented technologies created largely in-house. The video platform enables services such as Switched Video, Digital Cable, Video on demand and Internet Protocol Television [IPTV] offered on a variety of transport networks such as QAM cable, DSL and Verizon FiOS.

In planning for their IPO, company leadership understood the need to share its story and engage audiences beyond scientific, engineering, and technology circles, and its MSO and telco customer markets. BigBand turned to WHISPER.

Action

With little time to create results, the task quickly revealed itself as evolving the BigBand narrative from technologyspeak to a conversation both Wall Street and Main Street could easily understand. The objective was to engage the public financial markets and a large untapped audience of global prospects.

For a company admittedly reliant upon technology jargon, finding the competitive white space opportunity upon which to create the company's positioning and its story was paramount.

The client's largest revenue stream, video delivery platforms - from MSO to in-home user - was identified quickly in the engagement as the unfilled and uncommunicated white space opportunity, based on the understanding that "BigBand Networks stands first and foremost for video delivery and enjoyment, with products enabling the transmission of digital television to consumers around the world."

With video as our door opener, our conversation starter, this entry point story emerged:

We Move The Pictures That Move You®

This verbalized position and entry point message authentically mapped back into the values and passion of the founders, while telegraphing an easy to grasp benefit for the B2B customer and, in addition, the end user audience.

Armed with this position and primary message, we moved to create a range of applications to support and extend the position, including online, print, photography and, of course, video.

Own The Conversation® Results

Wall Street liked the result. As one analyst described it, "you distilled this company and its business into an effective value proposition."

After a successful IPO and growth in market capitalization, Bigband Networks was acquired by ARRIS Group, Inc. [NASDAQ:ARRS].

 

Published in Work

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