Innovation has been having an extended moment for the past 12 years or so. Every city wants to be the next tech hub. I remember this story by former Forbes reporter Christopher Steiner about “The Right Way to Build a Tech City” — citing St. Louis’ efforts that we were fortune enough to work on.

Most recently, every region has been racing to claim the frontier of the next big thing — like quantum, AI, life sciences, fintech and more. Every organization has a story about the future it’s building.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth, and it’s especially important to understand as regional authorities and companies sit on their hands to conserve spending in these uncertain economic times: Innovation doesn’t sell itself.

The most groundbreaking technology in the world can languish in obscurity if no one knows it exists, understands why it matters, or believes in the people building it. The gap between doing something innovative and being known for it is where marketers earn their keep. Our job isn’t just to describe innovation—it’s to make it visible, credible, and investable.

Two campaigns we designed and led, more than a decade apart, show exactly how that works.

Rebranding a Rustbelt City as a Startup Frontier

In 2010, St. Louis was known for a lot of things: the Arch, the Cardinals, the King of Beers, and a roster of corporate giants like Monsanto and Enterprise. What it wasn’t known for was innovation.

Meanwhile, “startup city” was becoming the most coveted status a metro could claim—and St. Louis had quietly assembled all the right ingredients. Payment processor Square, audio innovator Yurbuds, Confluence Life Sciences, gaming trailblazer PixelPress. The ecosystem was real. The story just wasn’t being told.

So we built the narrative infrastructure to tell it:

• We created Accelerate St. Louis (AccelerateSTL.org), an online brand hub that became a living, breathing manifestation of the region’s startup community—and a front door for early-stage companies to join. They did, in droves.
• We produced content, much of it video, putting founders on camera to tell their own stories.
• We designed events that connected worlds, from pitch contests to CEO2CEO, where Fortune 500 chief executives were interviewed alongside startup founders by national journalists.
• We built engaged social communities and used search and paid media to put content directly in front of VCs and entrepreneurs.
• We pitched relentlessly, landing coverage in the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, and Forbes—which cited St. Louis as a model for how to build a tech city.
• And we went beyond traditional media, partnering with influencers like Silicon Valley Watcher’s Tom Foremski and Robert Scoble.

The recognition followed: fastest-growing startup city (Business Insider), the “new startup frontier” (FiveThirtyEight), the #1 startup city (Popular Mechanics).

But awards aren’t the point. Impact is. Venture capital investment in St. Louis grew 256% — from $96 million to $342 million. And more than 80% of the region’s “new firm births” were companies with fewer than 20 employees, an all-time high. The marketing didn’t just change perception; it helped ignite genuine entrepreneurial activity.

But again, it does not self-sustain. Innovation does not sell itself. After some seven years of remarkable success, sadly, funding for Accelerate was ceased. And since it went away, St. Louis’s sense of place and community surrounding the innovation and startup scene has vanished.

Making Colorado the Global Epicenter of Quantum

Fast-forward to 2024. After the President Joe Biden administration designated Elevate Quantum Colorado a federal Tech Hub, the nonprofit faced a high-stakes challenge: it was pursuing more than $70 million in grant funding for the region and needed to dramatically raise its profile — regionally and nationally — to strengthen its bid.

Quantum technology is about as complex a subject as marketing gets. The task wasn’t just visibility; it was translating a frontier science into a story people could rally behind. So we did.

We maintained a steady cadence of media outreach covering every angle—quantum breakthroughs, government backing, funding allocation, and stories from consortium members driving the field forward.

And we mobilized every available resource. We activated Governor Jared Polis and his team, Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper and theirs, CU Boulder’s administration, and leaders across the consortium’s 70+ members—for pitching, events, podcasts, bylines, and anything else that could amplify the mission.

At the same time, we built Elevate Quantum’s digital presence from the ground up, rallying the entire quantum ecosystem behind a content-heavy LinkedIn campaign.

The results came fast. Elevate Quantum became a go-to source for business and science reporters, earning features in The Colorado Sun, Colorado Public Radio, the Denver Business Journal, KOB 4, and The Quantum Insider—with total readership and viewership approaching 20 million. On LinkedIn, we grew the audience by 206% in a single month, drove nearly 50K impressions (up 205%), and sustained a 9.09% engagement rate—more than 4x the typical benchmark.

The Common Threads: Translate & Delivery

Thirteen years and two very different technologies apart, these campaigns share the same DNA. In both, the innovation was already happening. What was missing was a strategy and execution that built and delivered the products:

1. Find the narrative — Stories are there, buried inside the technology and the people building it.
2. Rally an ecosystem — Bring together and rally founders, executives, elected officials, universities into a chorus, not a solo.
3. Translate complexity — Develop stories that resonate with the specific audiences who can fund, join, and champion the movement.
4. Connect activity to outcomes — Attract VC dollars, pursue grant funding, build communities.

Bringing innovation to life isn’t about hype. It’s about doing the hard, strategic work of making sure the right people know what’s possible—and believe in the people making it happen.

Because the best ideas in the world still need someone to tell their story.