We already know about Industry 4.0
25 July 2019
In a guest column, exclusive to Connectivity, Jessica Phillips, junior account manager at Stone Junction – the first ever PR agency for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, questions whether clear product marketing could help answer the question, what is Industry 4.0?
The term Industry 4.0 has previously been dismissed as a marketing buzzword, used to convince plant managers that they must invest in new technology or risk being left behind. Understandably, Industry 4.0 is a popular topic amongst industry’s thought leaders, but it’s now time to demonstrate how products can help make the concept a reality.
Crossing the chasm
In his book, Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers, Geoffrey Moore argues that there is a chasm between the early adopters of a new technology product and the early majority. Moore suggests several techniques to cross successfully, including choosing a target market, understanding the whole product concept, positioning the product, building a marketing strategy and choosing the most appropriate distribution channel.
While I’m not an expert in product development, I may be able to shed some light on building a successful marketing strategy.
Every single product that promises to help plant managers reap the benefits of Industry 4.0 is currently sitting before this chasm, attempting to cross. When developing a marketing strategy for a product that falls into this category, it might be tempting to share everything that you know about Industry 4.0 – what it means, where it originated from and how it’s going to revolutionise manufacturing in the future.
In reality, it’s likely that your potential customers already know this, or at least have their own thoughts on the matter. After all, if you have to explain the concept of Industry 4.0, you’re probably marketing to the wrong audience.
Clever product marketing
By having a set of clear marketing messages, you can make your product the one that fills that Industry 4.0 box on every plant manager’s new plant floor plan. If you’re unsure how this is done, think back to 1986, when Control Techniques launched the world’s first digital DC drive – a product that genuinely revolutionised the drives industry. While your usual columnist, Richard Stone, can remember this clearly, it was slightly before my time. However, this makes it no less impressive.
Fortunately, I’ve been able to witness a similar feat for myself at VISION 2018, where we were lucky enough to see autonomous machine vision founder Inspekto launch the first system of its kind. Until this point, quality assurance managers were forced to fork out hundreds of thousands of pounds for a machine vision solution that they had no control over. Just one small change to the production line, whether it be to the lighting, product or anything else, required the long wait time for a systems integrator to rebuild the machine vision solution. Now, when plant managers are envisioning their new line, they know to specify an autonomous machine vision system.
What these two inspiring companies, along with many others, did was identify an issue that was troubling their entire customer base and introduce a solution. Of course, they both demonstrated a great deal of thought-leadership around their individual issues, but they also shouted loud about how their product offered a genuine fix – something that others shouldn’t be scared to do.
So, let’s stop talking about Industry 4.0 as if it’s just arrived and start shouting about the products that exist to help us realise it. Most importantly though, act quick, or else it will be someone else’s product taking your space on those incomplete plant floor plans.
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