The Brain: A smart brand position for Medtronic

It's a brain pacemaker.

Perhaps you have heard of it. It has been about a year since most of us got our first look at Medtronic's Activa Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) implantable device. To the layperson, and on a very basic level, it functions akin to a "traditional" pacemaker for the heart. In this case, by contrast, Medtronic's latest technical marvel helps treat the degenerative effects of Parkinson's disease by regulating electrical impulses deep within the brain.

Although amazing, the device in and of itself is not the point. Rather, Activa symbolizes the beginning of a fundamental shift in brand strategy for the medical technology industry. First, a bit of background.

The brain is, with little doubt, one of the next great frontiers of medical treatment. Until only recently however, developing actual therapies proved elusive. Research had not provided the critical underpinnings for therapeutic and technological development.

That delay between research and therapy is not at all new. Heart research and therapy followed the same general path. In the early 1970s, people suffering from heart disease had few options. We understood (some of) the properties of blood thinners. We understood basic heart function. We understood basic bypass.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, each year brought new advances: artificial hearts, implantable stents (drug coated and otherwise), new drugs, advanced bypass techniques, and minimally invasive techniques.

An entire medical technology industry, and brand position, grew up around this technology. Minnesota firms Medtronic, Guidant, and others were right in the middle of it. They branded their businesses around their expertise in heart technology and treatments, creating a picture in the public mind of the promise of new research and new breakthroughs.

And it worked. Minnesota med tech firms are among the most respected of our corporate citizens.

But today, we can see their market beginning to mature. Innovations in the "heart" industry, while significant, are not as "breakthrough" in the minds of the general public as they were 10 to 20 years ago. Branding your company as an expert in heart technology no longer holds the same panache as it once did.

To make matters worse, medical technology firms have struggled a bit with image projection in the last five to six years: product recalls, injuries, deaths, consolidations, mergers, and boardroom issues have all taken their toll on the brands of the top firms in the industry. Without another major leap forward (in the public mind), medical technology's image has begun to tarnish a bit.

To that end, the brain seems to be just what the doctor ordered.

As the heart market has matured, brain research has begun to catch up. With advances in visualization technology, we are beginning to see inside the brain as we never could before. Now, just as in the 1970s and ’80s in heart research, we are on the dawn of a whole new era of development.

Medtronic is on the first step on that path with Activa.

Industry analysts put the market size for this type of product class (medical technology applications for brain condition therapy) at $3 billion today growing to $8 billion by the end of the decade. An impressive growth rate, to be sure, but even that misses the point.

With most of the attention focused on stem cell therapies, at least in the popular mind—we as the general business public—are also missing the point. Those therapies and research are in their infancy. Promising, but years away.

Medtronic, among others, see that that the next major advances—the breakthroughs that define industries and propel companies to new heights—will come (at least in the near to moderate term) from brain therapies.

Even as the casual business observer, the possibilities are staggering.

Parkinson's is just one possible application. Roughly 500,000 people suffer from Parkinson’s in the U.S. alone, with 50,000 new cases being added each year.

But there are other brain conditions—many others. The Brain Foundation lists 58 individual conditions as a starting point for those of us outside the medical persuasion. A few of the more common:

Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia (Non-Alzheimer-type)

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Aneurysm

Autism

Cerebral Palsy

Traumatic Brain Injury (coma, concussion, etc.)

Down Syndrome

Dyslexia

Epilepsy

Meningitis

Multiple Sclerosis

Muscular Dystrophy

Tourette Syndrome

An $8 billion market? I think not.

Of course, Medtronic is not alone. Industry powerhouse St. Jude also is developing brain therapies. As is tiny, Houston-based Cyberonics—it has received FDA approval to test its implantable device to treat epilepsy-related drug-resistant depression. These firms are reaping the benefits of first-mover advantage and, along with it, the chance to create an entirely new brand picture in the minds of the public, the business community, top talent, and investors.

That said, brain technology remains a tiny share of Medtronic's business (as it does for most other med-tech firms). And it will be for the foreseeable future. But as Medtronic moves into the future, branding itself around the brain truly is a smart move.

The only thing standing in the way of an evolving (and dominant) brand position is big corporate inertia. But I think Medtronic is smarter than that.