By Joe Banks
An interesting story came out the other week featuring Mike Lynch, the big man at Autonomy, talking about what it takes for a UK IT company to crack the US market. His conclusion? It’s “PR, PR, PR”…
Lynch accuses our American cousins of arrogance – something of course which Lynch himself knows a thing or two about – because they assume that only US companies can produce technology that’s good enough for their home market.
It’s a pretty provocative position to take, but I have to say that there’s definitely the ring of truth about it. The US has a business culture that still encourages and endorses local success, whereas the UK gave up on the idea of ‘Buy British’ many years ago. What’s happened to the British film industry is analogous to the perception of UK IT: people are happy to wait for the latest Hollywood/Silicon Valley blockbuster – already ‘proven’ by US sales even if the actual quality may be lacking – but assume that home-grown product won’t ‘travel’ or scale.
This is reflected in the way that technology is written about in the US media – while UK pubs pride themselves on a cold objectivity verging on outright cynicism, and love nothing better than a failed IT project, American journalists often adopt what can only be described as a cheerleading tone when writing about new companies and developments, and are a primary source for the kind of tech boosterism that inflated the original internet bubble before it burst. And while there was a bit of soul-searching afterwards, you only need to see how the Web 2.0 ‘phenomenon’ has been hyped in the US by journalists and pro-bloggers alike for confirmation that old habits die hard…
So, that brings us to PR – but also to something of a paradox. You’d kind of assume that the way PR is carried out in the States would reflect its media ie. upbeat and forthright, but in my (admittedly limited) experience of US agency* pitch materials, they tend to be pretty mild to say the least. In fact, they often amount to little more than ‘Company X is releasing new product Y, and, err, would you like to speak to them?’ Now, perhaps it’s all down to super persuasive phone work over there… but still, I’m constantly surprised at the apparent lack of cut and thrust in their outreach.
What kind of PR is Lynch talking about then? In the UK, we PR new companies by coming up with the issues that their technology addresses, talking them up as thought leaders, and promoting the benefits of their products for potential customers. In the US, does PR just highlight how 'X' is another great example of US technology prowess in some kind of self-reinforcing feedback loop?? In which case, UK companies are at a definite disadvantage in the American market how ever good their products are.
Still, Autonomy has done alright in the US, so it’s clearly not impossible for UK tech companies to break through. But ‘PR, PR, PR’ isn’t everything, and perhaps the most telling aspect of the original story is Lynch’s assertion that UK companies need to ‘Americanise’ themselves if they want to really succeed. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions as to how Lynch has done this at Autonomy…
* JK disclaimer: Joe obviously isn’t referring to any of our US partner agencies, who are superior in all possible ways to their peers.
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