Nextflex : America’s Flexible Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing Institute
The Challenge
Build a brand from the ground up by convincing a community of accomplished technologists, educators, problem solvers and manufacturers to come together and collectively facilitate innovation to establish a sustainable manufacturing ecosystem under a brand separate from their own: specifically, under the NextFlex brand. To succeed, industry titans and traditional competitors would have to collaborate for the greater good of an entire industry sector.
The Solution
In the absence of having any commercial applications to talk about we had to choose between telling a story of future technology and what it might enable, or one of humanity and what the people behind the technology had already accomplished. The future of an entire industry was in the hands of a few pioneering engineers, designers and researchers, and it was their story that we chose to tell versus the technology being developed in labs across the country.
We challenged the engineering community to join us if they thought they had what it takes to become an elite member of the Institute and we highlighted what individual members had already accomplished in their careers: hundreds of patents, product designs, fellowships, awards, and overall industry celebrity. Specifically, the Institute’s strength became its membership, and its success their participation in the Institute.
n2o’s role
n2o recommended the organization’s overall market positioning and led the development and creation of all of the organization’s marketing assets including the website, brochure, membership materials, tradeshow booth and events materials. Serving as a strategic advisor to NextFlex’s Executive Director, n2o also architected the organization’s 5-year strategic plan and corresponding operational roadmap.
