Medtronic: Close contact with customers resets entire sales strategy.

The need: MedTronic’s patient monitoring team’s success was fueled by an evidence based approach, but as the technology became a standard of care, the organization realized something was missing: the brand had become detached from a clear understanding of who they were serving and why. We needed to build the patient monitoring brand and corresponding go-to-market strategy from real, tangible human tensions.

The approach: IX began with stakeholder interviews and an archetype foundation workshop. This helped us identify the strategic target and most recurrent behavioral tendencies in the brand’s hidden story. Ethnography in five US markets helped us develop real empathy for our new target, informing a poignancy and resonance in the brand story. Through this work, we uncovered a deeper brand purpose, clearer brand promise, and a through-line in the organization’s optimal external communication. Regional teams spread across the country spoke into--and rallied around--the framework and deliverables for going to market.

The result: Staged rollout continues through 2020. Said the client, “Now, when we bring up the promise and purpose, everyone nods their heads. This work gave us a north star, a platform to build off of that made sense to the organization. IX set us on a path and showed us how to walk it out. I am so excited to see where this takes us, and am already planning to do this again with [another MedTronic] team.”