Regis McKenna

Regis McKenna (born 1939 ) is an American marketer in Silicon Valley. He and his namesake firm Regis McKenna, Inc. helped market the first microprocessor (Intel Corporation), Apple's first personal computer (Apple Computer), the first recombinant DNA genetically engineered product (Genentech, Inc.), and the first retail computer store (The Byte Shop).

Among the entrepreneurial start-ups with which he worked during their formative years are America Online, Apple, Compaq, Electronic Arts, Genentech, Intel, Linear Technology, Lotus, Microsoft, National Semiconductor, Silicon Graphics, and 3Com. He has been described as the man who put Silicon Valley on the map. He has been called "Silicon Valley's preeminent public relations man", a "guru", a "czar", a "philosopher king", a "legendary marketer", Apple's "marketing guru", "the fellow that put Intel and Apple on the map", and "a pioneer in the semiconductor business in terms of the marketing side of things". Newsweek called him "the Silicon Valley Svengali" and Business Week has called him "one of high-tech's ace trendspotters" and a "marketing wizard in Silicon Valley".

A 1985 Los Angeles Times remarked, "McKenna is best known for taking the story of Apple Computer's founding in a Los Altos garage by two young entrepreneurs and weaving it into part of our national folklore."

He first went to Silicon Valley in 1962, where he worked in the marketing department of General Microelectronics, a spinoff of Fairchild that started developing MOS technology.

Regis McKenna, Inc. In late 1969, McKenna left National and began to seek work as a marketing freelancer, helping Silicon Valley startups "with everything from research to training." He put together a "marketing plan," including a list of "the top ten companies" he wanted to work with, and ended up having them all as clients. The list included Intel, Spectra-Physics, Teledyne, and Systron Donner. He went on to work for Intel and then Apple. He later recalled that "Apple wasn't happy with the name Apple after they started growing. They looked at IBM and said, 'We don't look like IBM. We're not, you know, dignified.'" McKenna made a two-hour presentation to Apple's employees in which he said: “That's exactly what you do want. You want to be different from IBM. You don't want to be the same. You don't want to emulate them. You want to do all of the things that distinguish you from them.”

Andrea Cunningham, the firm's group account manager for Apple, told the Los Angeles Times in 1985, "This agency knows more about Apple Computer than Barbara Krause (Apple's in-house public relations chief)." In a 2002 article, he declared that “branding (as currently practiced) is dead.”

Retirement Since his retirement from active consulting in 2000, McKenna has lectured about many topics, such as “the social and market effects of technological change.” Real Time, Preparing for the Age of the Never Satisfied Customer, Harvard Business School Press, 1997. This book “analyzes the effects of technology on the marketplace and describes how high-speed electronics enables ready access to information, products, and services and, in the process, generates increased expectations for immediate satisfaction.” Relationship Marketing, Addison-Wesley, 1991. Publishers Weekly described it as a “spirited recap of the 1980s” that “traces the rise and occasional fall of many start-up companies in the turbulent, proliferating computer and software industry, including the competition between Apple Inc. and IBM.” Who's Afraid of Big Blue, Addison-Wesley, 1989. This book “chronicles the strategies for success against industry giants and offers advice to those who want to challenge IBM, and to those who face similar competition in other industries.” The Regis Touch, New Marketing Strategies for Uncertain Times, Addison-Wesley, 1985. In this book, McKenna “shares for the first time his proven strategies for creating new markets, positioning products, gaining recognition, serving customers, and keeping pace with fast-changing environments.”

Articles McKenna has written many articles for Forbes, Ink, Fortune, and the Harvard Business Review. He has also written poetry.

Honors and awards McKenna won the Joseph Wharton Award in 1986. He received honorary Ph.Ds from Duquesne University (1990), Saint Vincent College (1991), Santa Clara University (2002), and Stevens College of Engineering (2002).

In 1991, he won the International Computers & Communications World Leaders Award.

The San Jose Mercury News included McKenna on its Millennium 100 list, a roster of the 100 people who made Silicon Valley what it is today.