Several out-of-state companies working with our agency are in a State of New — either relaunching their growing organizations or breathing new life into a flagship product with a six-figure ASP. The reasons vary from positive to negative, from entering new medical markets to a false start for an expensive device. These companies are full of questions: Should we rename our company? Can our product really have a second life? What’s different about us?

This brought home to me that despite there being many bright and energetic people in the medical device world (including you, dear reader), there is a dearth of either knowledge or will when it comes to successfully branding a product or company. Perhaps that’s because doing it right takes time and money (although in many cases less than you might think), and most medical device marketers have too little of either. Maybe it’s also because the critical first step — discerning the market’s true needs and wants — is often skipped or truncated because the deliverables, insight and strategic direction, are deemed intangible. (“Where’s our stuff?” the CEO keeps asking.)

But it’s insight that can make all the difference. Take Hyundai, one of the most visible makeover success stories of recent times. Its Super Bowl ad last January looked like many typical car commercials, the sleek, mid-priced Sonata sailing the coastal highway to soothing music. But the voiceover showed that Hyundai really got it: “Now finance or lease any new Hyundai, and if you lose your income in the next year, you can return it with no impact on your credit.”

Hyundai’s marketing execs knew that in hard times, automobile innovation takes a back seat to bread-and-butter issues. Last January, consumers weren’t worried about which car would improve their image; they were worried about losing their jobs. This insight led to the Hyundai Assurance program and paid off for the Korean carmaker: In September, while auto industry sales dropped 22 percent, Hyundai’s rose 27 percent. (It helps that they’ve come a long way since the early Excel. I owned a 1988 and still have nightmares.)

Now consider that a big reason medical practices aren’t buying new capital equipment isn’t that they’re saying no to manufacturers — their banks are saying no to them. They can’t get the loans. So smart medical companies are offering ways to help physicians get financing. It’s still innovation; it’s just not about product bells and whistles.

So what’s Lesson #1 for new companies or companies hitting the reset button? Listen first. Too often products are developed based on a great technological idea or scientific principle rather than great market insight. Then the manufacturer goes in search of a market. It should be the other way around. If you’re finding yourself in a State of New, print the following list and pin it on your wall. It’s from Juicing the Orange: How to Turn Creativity into a Powerful Business Advantage by advertising execs Pat Fallon and Fred Senn (Harvard Business School Press, 2006), and I really can’t say it any better than this:

1. Always start from scratch.
2. Demand a ruthlessly simple definition of the business problem.
3. Discover a proprietary emotion.
4. Focus on the size of the idea, not the size of the budget.
5. Seek out strategic risks.
6. Collaborate or perish.
7. Listen hard to your customers (then listen some more).

Never assume at any given moment that you know what your target markets are thinking unless you ask them. When starting out or when market conditions change (such as a downturn in the economy), find out what you don’t know you don’t know. You can hire a research firm, a marcom agency or pick up the phone yourself. One way or another, listen hard to your customers. Then listen some more. Do you hear what they hear?

{IMAGERIGHT:http://www.massdevice.com/sites/default/wp-content/uploads/headshots/Kinslow_Rob_100x100.jpg}Rob Kinslow, vice president of strategic communications at SeidlerBernstein, oversees the quality and accuracy of branding and message strategy for the company’s clients. He makes it a point to know everything about clients’ business, products and market, right down to the smallest detail. He’s worked with clients including Bayer, Boston Scientific, Genzyme and Millipore and has won awards from the Biomedical Marketing Assn., the Rx Club, the American Medical Writers Assn. and others.