How we helped Thermo Fisher Scientific go to market with their highest-profile offering in decades: The world’s first technology to capture and identify airborne COVID-19.

THE SITUATION

In the winter of 2020, while we were all at home and social distancing, Thermo Fisher Scientific came to us with a once-in-a-lifetime ask: Could we help them go to market with both a new product and a new approach to defeating the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic?

AerosolSense, their new pathogen surveillance solution, combined aerosol capture technology with leading genetic science to deliver timely and highly reliable insight into in-air pathogen presence. Not only could it capture and identify SARS-CoV-2, but also other pathogens, like influenza.

This was truly a once-In-a-lifetime ask and opportunity.

The challenges were unique. We were introducing a new product (AerosolSense) and a new category (in-air pathogen surveillance). The landscape of the pandemic was ever-changing (new protocols, regulations, developments, mutations, and variations). And the potential customers would eventually become just about every organizational decisionmaker, everywhere in the world – continually expanding our target audience.

Meanwhile, the stakes couldn’t be higher. We knew lives would be saved by this offering. And on any given day, the work we completed one day would be presented to critical audiences the next day.

THE STRATEGY

The positioning, messaging, and execution were consistently directed by two critical insights:

1. If you’re first-to-market, sell the category, and you’ll also sell the solution. We were messaging in-air pathogen surveillance, and thus the first-to-market, in-air sampler for SARS-CoV-2.
2. When you’re offering a real solution to an urgent need, be clear, concise, and direct at every touchpoint. And in this situation, nothing mattered more than fast and highly reliable insight into the safety of indoor air.