How to Brand Canadian Cleantech (Better)

In a recent interview on Cleanbreak.ca, managing director of Canada’s Clean 15 competition Dwayne Matthews made an interesting observation:

“In my experience many global companies that would potentially be interested in partnering with or licensing Canadian techs are not aware of the level of technology that is here. I also think that extends to end users and investors as well. Many cleantech companies here do not spend dollars on strategic marketing and instead opt for classic big trade shows to showcase their technologies.”¹

If Mr. Matthews thinking is any indication, it would seem many involved in the Canadian clean tech industry have underestimated the value of a well-executed brand and marketing communications. This shouldn’t be the case. The technology is exciting, and it’s about solving big problems.

Unfortunately the technology is complex and too often explained in a complex manner. The problem isn’t innovation, its communication.

An Evolving Market

In spite of some recent market contraction in the solar sector, the industry continues to grow. Canadian companies are poised for growth and now command a presence in the American market, with an emerging presence in China and Western Europe.

Common wisdom would say that a prosperous industry is good news; however, with growth comes competition and with competition comes greater demands for companies to stand out by communicating what they offer with clarity and purpose.

Clarity and purpose, understandably, are much easier said than done. In this article we’ll discuss 3 important considerations for Clean Tech companies when approaching branding and communications. We’ll draw on recent work with the Cleantech Community Gateway (CTCG) as well as best practices from our experience in other industries.

Branding: A Primer

It’s our experience that branding can often be a confusing undertaking for many businesses. For some it’s merely a logo; for others an entire strategy.

Dorothy Mackenize of Dragon Rouge UK made the point when branding for emerging technology sectors:

“Having a strong brand for new players in a new sector is a crucial part of building confidence among stakeholders. Brand is not simply a route for connecting with customers. It is a way of crystallising a statement of intent about the organisation’s focus and future for potential investors, employees and commentators…[it] needs to be defined in a way that is robust enough to direct what the organisation says and does through all the different communication and behavioural channels available to it: policies, product and service development, recruitment and reward, visual and verbal expression and broader communication.”²

We’re of the mind that a brand is the total experience one has with your business – it’s a key message, a logo, a business card, even a PowerPoint presentation at an investor meeting. Although it may begin with visual communication, your brand extends to all points of contact with your organization, including the bonds formed with clientele and other stakeholders.

To provide some context, an initial branding process with Armada typically happens like this:

• A company develops a communications strategy, expressing precisely what key objectives they wish to achieve. Through these objectives a strategy can be strongly aligned with broader business or sales targets. Depending upon where a company is in their planning process, we may have a hand in helping clarify or revise these objectives.
• Next, an intensive consultation and discovery process allows us to help develop a key message (or “positioning statement”) to clarify a company’s position within the market and their unique proposition.
• The positioning statement we develop allows a brand identity to emerge, giving life to the message.
• A message needs a medium. We develop targeted communications material that will have the highest impact for your message and objectives. For larger organizations, a brand-standards guide may be developed to provide cohesion for in-house personal and development.

In short your brand should promote goodwill and long-term relationships with those you need to reach out to. A clear message and consistent brand experience is often beneficial to your team internally as well; guiding decision making around marketing and communications.

Great Brands Begin With Great Company Vision

As with other technology sectors, investment in Cleantech is highly competitive, forcing even the most promising start-ups to fight for funding. To make matters more daunting, a business founded on a technological innovation raises others concerns: long-term viability of the technology; competitiveness in the face of highly agile competition; and coping with the complexities of commercialization.

From our experience, remaining competitive in these crucial stages in part stems from company vision – the aspirations of your innovation and ultimately the ‘bigger picture’ issue that you hope to solve.

A well thought-out vision strikes a chord with people. It’s more a story of your company than one element of a static strategy document. Features can be emulated and eventually made redundant. A story is less tangible and harder to duplicate.

From a branding standpoint stories are powerful draw-ins for prospective audiences. They build excitement and create a sense of urgency by selling the end impact for people and communities.

As recently pointed out in a clean technology report commissioned by Sustainable Development Technology Canada:

“Customers quick to buy new technologies, but unable to express the value they derive from the investment, the alternatives they considered, why the product meets their business needs, and how the product should evolve if it is to continue to be of value, are unlikely to be credible references or case studies.”³

A story-driven brand matters most at the critical moment when investors and early adopters are necessary for building momentum. It helps clarify the value and end benefit of your technology, offsetting the unavoidable risk they assume in taking a chance with your business in its infancy. This informed and engaged customer is also likely to become a long-term asset to your business, rather than a one-time purchaser.

CTCG: Technology that engages Communities

The challenge of communicating company vision arose with our work with Cleantech Community Gateway. For CTCG engagement began with communities rather than investors. Although they understood the challenges that communities in BC faced, it was clear that their pain-point stemmed from a disconnect between their communications (commercialization oriented) and key audience (remote communities in BC) – many of them aboriginal.

Although they came from a place of deep respect for the traditions and history of these communities, they had raised worries that consultants and technocrats had come to make sweeping changes; concerned more with profit than sustainable development. Unfortunately they learnt this the hard way.

From that realization the approach became clear: humanize the organization and humanize the technology. The visual identity we conceived came to reflect the interplay of community culture, economic development and clean technology, allowing CTCG to have a very different conversation about clean technology than other organizations.

Clarity is a Strategy for Growth

A purposeful vision aligned with a clear brand – and not to mention the technology itself – are valuable to the extent that end users can understand them.

Tony Wanless, in a recent BC Business article made the point that “experts who develop clean technologies are often skilled scientists and technologists, but poor business people; and because the sector is broad, investors have a difficult time becoming expert about it.”⁴

There is a tendency among those in technical fields to pitch their product or service with an economy of detail – overwhelmed with benefits and esoteric language. Understandably technical detail is a necessity at different stages of the sales process, but the starting point should always be a clear message.

When we work with clients on developing positioning statements we encourage them to consider a hierarchy to their communications.

• What is the most crucial message their customers need to hear?
• From there which information is of secondary importance?
• Which information is tertiary?

This becomes even more important where large amounts of information need to be managed, such as on a corporate website or technical print material.

In this way the brand and key messaging becomes an “umbrella” for your marketing communications.  A hierarchy of content should neither confuse users nor force you to “dumb down” content. And like your story it keeps the conversation centered on end-benefit, reminding prospective customers of the bigger picture even when complicated information needs to be presented.

Clarity ultimately helps businesses spend smarter. Clear messaging becomes a “yard-stick” to measure tactical decisions by – whether a high-touch relationship should be cultivated through an industry trade-show presence or simply a direct mail piece, for instance. From our experience with technical industries, much of their expenditures are unnecessary and ineffective for this exact reason.

In short having a clear point of reference helps businesses make smarter decisions.

CTCG: Create A Compelling Starting Point

Taking on the complex role as a broker between community needs and public/private companies made the need for clarity with CTCG all the more relevant.

Our obstacle in positioning Cleantech Community Gateway was three-fold:

• The brand and key messaging to date were too heavily focused on the technology
• The name and positioning statement combined were saying too many things, confusing rather than clarifying
• It wasn’t immediately obvious who the organization was trying to target

Our Solution

The starting point for CTCG was ambiguous at best and detrimental at worst, taking away from the good work that the organization was involved in.

We shortened clean technology to cleantech in the company’s name, making it more manageable and memorable for audiences. From there we conceived a new positioning statement through consultation with the board: energy solutions that work for remote communities.

Repositioning Cleantech Community Gateway helped the organization in a number of important ways:

• It made very clear their intent to reach out to remote communities – the niche that is crucial to their success.
• As technology is already implied in the name, the focus shifted to energy solutions – more broad and all encompassing.
• The reference to work is kept ambiguous, inviting further conversation throughout marketing communications.
• The compliment of photography brought home the point that the solutions that work ultimately work for the people in the communities.

Establishing Credibility Through Better Case Studies

Clear messaging is a necessity for a great brand, but it isn’t the entire story.

The same report commissioned by Sustainability Development Technology Canada went on to observe:

“Emerging technology companies rely on sophisticated customers who are able to express their technical and economic needs, and willing to work with suppliers to develop attractive solutions…These customers not only provide invaluable feedback to the manufacturer about their product, they also serve as references and case studies on which future customers will depend to make purchase decisions.”⁵

Whether you need to acquire funding or establish a broader market presence, demonstrating success and market viability will become a necessity at some point in your branding. Above feasibility studies, project milestones, etc, your greatest validation comes through social proof. To this end, compelling case studies from your clients are critical tools in your sales arsenal.

A similar need to demonstrate community impact arose with Cleantech Community Gateway. They needed an effective channel for future case studies, to communicate the role they play as a broker between communities and public/private organizations. We suggested a ‘featured projects’ section to their website that could be expanded upon with future work, creating an accessible presentation of content for prospective communities. And rather than merely writing about their results, we advised them to document their processes through photography and video content.

Consider a few points when developing case studies for your own organization:

• Who are you aspiring to reach? Is the objective to get the attention of an entire market or are there a handful of decision makers that you have to sell? Should the tone appeal to savvy venture capitalists or government bureaucrats interested more in community and economic development?
• Consider how these case studies fit into your overall vision and ‘brand story’. Are they highly calculated and professional in tone or intended to be emotive and compelling? Consider also that the same project – with essentially the same content – can be presented from numerous angles with the addition of layout design, photography content and even video.
• Finally consider your channels of distribution. For a focus on high-touch relationships, a quality direct mail piece or DVD may be of more value than an e-mailed PDF document to key decision makers. Conversely, in order to reach out to a broad audience a less typical approach may work well, such as presenting a case study as a blog post that your audience can easily share or syndicate to others in the industry.

As with other branding endeavours, the broader point to consider is what the end game should be. From our experience too many companies with a technical focus give little consideration to the presentation and execution of case studies, instead falling back on a one-size-fits-all approach.

Clean Technology Going Forward

Clean technology presents a unique set of challenges as well as exciting prospects for the future. As unique as the sector may be the need for good branding persists, as it does with all other industries; perhaps more now than ever.

The world needs a prosperous clean technology sector. People need to know the technology exists and more importantly need to understand why it matters.

Achieving the consensus needed for major environmental and economic change will come to depend not only on successful innovation but compelling communication to get the word out. Strong brands create the conversation to realize that change.

Interested in learning more? Get in touch or check out a few of our feature projects.

~Sean Stiller