By Rob Kinslow, Sr. Strategist, Brand Communication, KHJ Brand Activation

Charles Dickens was a rock star in his day. When he visited America in 1842 at the age of 30, the famed author of such classics as Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby was fairly mobbed by fans on the streets of Boston. A Worcester native described his appearance: “A stout Prince Albert frock coat, a flashy red vest with a dark figured scarf about his neck, fastened with a pin to which was attached any quantity of gold chain,” also noting the young writer’s “long flowing hair.” Dickens would have been at home with John, Paul, George and Ringo on the cover of 1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s.

Back in 1842, however, after touring the states for several months, Dickens cut short his visit and returned to England. He had become disillusioned with America, particularly American slavery. “This is not the republic I came to see; this is not the republic of my imagination,” he wrote to a friend.

Dickens turned his observations into American Notes for General Circulation, a book critical of America in practice versus America in concept. As the world notes Dickens’s 200th birthday in 2012, I find myself wondering what he would say about the sleeping giant that is today’s medical device industry, a field that conceptualizes brilliantly but shows up meekly. Bleak Brand House?  Not-so-Great Expectations? A Tale of Too Taxing?

I say “sleeping giant” because ours is a fragmented industry that could use an awakening. As MassDevice.com publisher Brian Johnson recently observed, we medical device marketers are often working in a self-imposed vacuum, so busy competing with each other that we aren’t able to do for ourselves the very thing we help our companies and clients do all the time: change the conversation.

But we must, for if we don’t, jobs will continue to be lost, companies that are on the leading edge of innovation but on the thinnest edge of profitability will fall, and that  2.3% medical tax everyone’s upset about could be a 4.6% tax two years down the road.

What would Dickens do? The man was a marketing genius. He serialized many of his novels, publishing them in newspapers prior to publication—in device-speak, a mutually remunerative distributorship that also primed the market (the reading public) for every book launch. But Dickens also instilled customer loyalty by consistently showing up with fiction and opinion that spoke big truths and made people laugh and cry. Whether he was speaking through Pip, Martin Chuzzlewit or David Copperfield, Dickens was selling Dickens.

Were he to advise the medical device industry, I think Dickens would urge us to speak with one voice, frequently, consistently and passionately, and speak big truths. Don’t medical devices cut costs as well as costly health consequences? Don’t device companies drive global innovation as well as the global economy? Don’t devices give people back their lives and their livelihoods? There’s plenty of opportunity here to strike a chord with the listening public—which, last I looked, is the ultimate beneficiary of everything we produce. It’s just that right now, with various interest groups and associations, there are too many solo players and the orchestra’s sadly out of tune.

In David Copperfield, Dickens famously wrote, “This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in.” We need to speak with one voice in perfect pitch. We need a rock star. These are neither the best of times nor worst of times, but time to say: Wake up, everyone. We have a wonderful story to tell. Let’s tell it. Are you in?

This is the Brand and Beyond™ blog, a new resource for the medical device industry. Brand and Beyond™ is sponsored by KHJ, headquartered in Boston, MA. KHJ is a strategic brand activation firm that is passionate about helping people see and realize what’s possible for themselves and the world around them.