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Why can't technology be fun? As a writer and art lover, I thought I could bring some pizzazz to the staid industrial equipment business. That was one of the intriguing prospects when I suddenly became responsible for my father's company back in 1983. Drawing upon the talents of my artist friends, I set out to change the face of our market. The results were decidedly mixed.
At the time, analytical equipment came in "old lab" shades of beige and green. For his part, my father was a bit of a renegade. In honor of our local professional football team, all MEECO's equipment was "Eagles" green. Brighter and darker than pale olive "lab" green, it was pretty ugly all the same. Equipment brochures were generally dull specification sheets, with small, hard-to-decipher, black-and-white photos of units deposited in boring layouts. Industry advertising was equally monotonous.
INDUSTRIAL MONDRIAN. I saw a real opportunity here. I wanted to give our classic, proven technology a fresh and daring new look. In so doing, I found a welcome link to my former life in Manhattan through my work with Design Monsters. A team of graphic designers, they specialize in book covers for best-sellers and CD jackets for big-name pop stars. Co-partners George Corsillo and Patty Manzone loved the notion of styling industrial equipment. We dreamed up motifs based on the paintings of Piet Mondrian, Russian Constructivism, Pop Art, Op Art, and Surrealism. Each unit was different, each brochure unique.
For MEECO's corporate image, we conceived a high-tech new logo and color scheme. We transformed our instrument faceplates with strong, primary colors and bold patterns, complemented by brushed stainless steel. The Accupoint moisture transducer, for instance, sported a big blue-and-orange bullseye. Some customers worried that it might become a real target in the natural gas fields. (No such incidents were ever reported.)
NOT-SO-FUNKY USERS. I'd love you to check out more examples on our Web page. But you won't find one of my favorites, the now obsolete Waterboy used mainly in the Southwest to measure moisture in natural gas. It had a trompe l'oeil faceplate of tan tooled leather in an intricate flower pattern, with its name engraved on a metal belt buckle, all beautifully silk-screened. Unfortunately, they just didn't get it in Europe, with frequent questions about why the flowers.
While most industrial instrument companies designate their products by letters and numbers, such as Ametek's 5700, we gave ours catchy names. The aforementioned Waterboy fell in with the O-Boy for oxygen analysis and the NastyBoy for moisture in chlorine. Our device for moisture in gases used by the utility industry? The U2.
When we introduced the Tracer, our premier analyzer for semiconductor gases, we designed mailers and a trade-show backdrop depicting the tale of private eye Dick Tracer. Based on a familiar cartoon character, he was hot on the trail of fugitive Dribbles, the escaped moisture mobster. Dribbles left small puddles on the window ledge below the smashed bars of his prison cell and wasted no time teaming up with Bubbles, the oxygen moll, a Betty Boop look-alike.
At Semicon Japan, a major semiconductor equipment industry trade show, the theme was a hit: "They love little creatures," said our American middleman there. But the same saga got barely a chuckle at Semicon West in San Francisco, where we even acted it out with costumed staff members.
EXPENSIVE LESSON. Still, looking back, I believe we influenced the market -- but at a considerable price. Industrial equipment now appears sleeker and more colorful, with well-designed marketing materials featuring sophisticated graphics. Crisp stripes are all the rage in solid corporate blues and grays. Pushing the bounds, one Japanese competitor even promoted a device festooned with lavender stripes on a white background.
Obviously, that company never conducted a focus group. In our market, I've come to understand that form doesn't merely follow function. It stays a good three paces behind. "Instruments are supposed to be functional and boring, not jump out at you," comments our national sales director, a dozen-year MEECO veteran. "Remember the guy who called the O-Boy the most goddawful thing he ever saw? He never bought from us." Talk about a brand gone bad.
One of our biggest faux pas is the NastyBoy. Chlorine is a noxious and corrosive yellow-green chemical. We were just kidding with the name, of course. But the end users were not amused. "To them, this stuff smells like a rose," says our Louisiana representative. Worse, the unit's faceplate is midnight blue with chartreuse green drips rolling down it. Result: A highly effective unit for a difficult application, with an image we have to sell around.
Over the last year, I finally started to tone it down. In April at Munich's Semicon Europa, the yellow lightning volt emblazoned across the top of our new AquaVolt drew disapproval. I snuffed the volt. "Our talents are wasted on this market," I said in half-jest to my disappointed marketing associate over lunch. "But, we're here to sell. That's gotta be the priority."
NOT QUITE THE iMAC. Indeed, I've almost given up on clever names, brash designs, and unique marketing ploys. Today, our equipment line hews to a cool palette of soft greens, blues, and grays. Our brochures follow a consistent format, which makes them easier for our reps to reference. More, our first entrant into laser-based analysis, due out this summer, is dubbed simply the MTO-1000.
It's not a complete defeat, however. I still work with Design Monsters, and our stuff looks great in a refined, subdued way. "Very techno," according to George. We realize technology can't be fun as long as the people using it take themselves so seriously. In our playful days, though, we sure had a blast.
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Before joining MEECO in 1983, Lisa Bergson worked as a business journalist at Business Week and freelanced for many business publications. She
received a Masters in Journalism from New York University and received Columbia University's Walter Bagehot Fellowship for economics and business
journalism. You can visit her company's web site at www.meeco.com, or contact her at lbergson@meeco.com.
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