How McQUERTER helped an 11-man start-up take on the telecom world. . . and win.   Client Challenge: In the fall of 1988, Qualcomm was an unknown company with an unknown wireless technology tucked into an unknown (technologically speaking) corner of the world. But its brilliant Chairman/CEO Irwin Jacobs, previously a professor at MIT, realized that a "spread-spectrum" approach could revolutionize the cellular industry. Armed with this elegant technology and little else, Jacobs challenged McQUERTER to "champion" code division multiple access (CDMA) to the global telecom community, building industry-wide support for what he hoped would become a worldwide standard for cell phones. McQ Response: With an annual budget of less than $100,000, McQUERTER went to work in the spring of 1989. With minimal resources and a formidable marketing challenge — nothing less than overthrowing the accepted cellular technology standard and its staunch supporters, the multi-national telcos — McQUERTER realized it could not adopt a traditional marketing approach. So the agency took the "high road." First, we deployed a "public information" campaign. We took an informational approach to educate the global telecom community on the science of the CDMA radio interface. We leveraged guest editorials, tech panel appearances, third-party testimonial articles, public service announcements and media advisories to promote CDMA not as a for-profit product, but as an industry-wide initiative to build next-generation networks with greater capacity and heightened security. To support this public affairs-based awareness program, we also wrote technical briefs, white papers and other technical documentation, and disseminated them to the engineering and technical standards bodies in the industry. The third leg of our awareness platform was to deploy a "news flash" program to generate high awareness of the successful field trials that Qualcomm was conducting in concert with large carriers. Not attainable, McQ's creative team developed a series of "advanced technology platform" display ads, using paid media to hammer home the superior attributes of the UTSi approach. Second, we simplified the technical advantages, employing everyday metaphors to explain CDMA. From a laundry list of 18 technical features of CDMA, we choose three compelling advantages: (a) 10X the capacity of current approach, (b) greatly enhanced call quality and (c) better privacy and security. Over the next six years, we hammered and hammered away at these advantages, never wavering from our original strong claims. To illustrate how the technology worked, we used examples from the everyday world: i.e., the ability of the human brain to selectively "listen in" on one of several overlapping conversations at a cocktail party, and a child pulling out letters of his alphabet soup to form a meaningful sentence. Familiarity, in this case, lead to improved goodwill for Qualcomm. Third, we helped QUALCOMM project the image of a world-class, highly successful telecom enterprise, even before it was one. Since we were striving for acceptance of a global standard, we knew we had to project a "larger-than-life" presence. We took a very gutsy and aggressive stance in our media relations. We issued a News Release every two weeks, to maintain "top-of-mind-share" with industry opinion leaders, analysts and media. We populated industry standards groups with Qualcomm engineers, maintaining a very high and vocal profile among the industry technical segment. We positioned Dr. Jacobs as "the guru in the Rolodex," and placed him on panels, keynote speakerships, as a guest editor, and as the author of "technical bulletins" distributed throughout the industry via direct mail. We also aggressively sought industry awards for technical innovation and leadership, and competed in dozens of competitions in the industry and business world at large. We featured Dr. Jacobs as the worldwide expert in media advisories, in which he commented on wireless trends including PCS attributes, spectrum auctions, the demise of TDMA, third-world telecom imperatives, capacity issues in metro areas, and other topical issues of the day. Results: The rest of the story is wireless legend. The CDMA standard. After ostracizing QUALCOMM for years, carriers and OEM companies were forced to recognize CDMA in the IS-95A standard in 1993. Two years later, Hong Kong Telecom deployed the first CDMA network, followed by Bell Atlantic in the US and BCS Tel in Canada. Today, Qualcomm's CDMA variant, now known as CDMA2000, is the second most deployed air interface in the world, second only to GSM. The standard is now used around the world by an estimated 120-million subscribers, and is poised to play the leading role in the emerging 3G "wideband CDMA" networks now being deployed. The company. As for Qualcomm, it has gone on to become one of the most successful tech companies in the world in the last decade. With one of the fastest rises to Fortune 500 status in history, it has emerged to become a dominant multinational force, in addition to being a sterling example of US advanced know-how, and a Wall Street darling before the current recession. The man. Chairman Jacobs has been recognized as an international business leader and technology statesmen, and has been invited by the US Dept. of Commerce to attend trade commissions around the world. He has received the national highest award for scientific achievement — the National Medal of Technology Award. He has also received Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and AEA's Medal of Achievement. Qualcomm technology is now on permanent display at the Technology Pavilion, Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC.