[citation needed]) was an American marketer in Silicon Valley and introduced some techniques today commonplace among advertisers.
[1] 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.
"[4] Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, McKenna attended Saint Vincent College and was a liberal arts graduate of Duquesne University.
[8] 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.
"[9] 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.
"[7] A 2012 article explains, "When a young Steve Jobs needed a marketing expert, he called Intel to ask who made their sharp-looking ads and was told 'Regis McKenna'".
"He asked if I would meet him at Apple the next day...I thought it was a media-cycle issue and that they should address it with the data they had and be confident about the outcome rather than be apologetic.
"[8] McKenna felt that Walter Isaacson's book about Jobs was "very negative...I never once had any of those confrontations that people talk about, and I knew him since he was 22 years old.
"[8] Aside from Intel and Apple, among the startups that the firm assisted in their formative years included America Online, Electronic Arts, Genentech, National Semiconductor, Silicon Graphics, and 3Com Corporation.
As a result, we are witnessing the emergence of a new marketing paradigm.”[14] In a 2002 article, he declared that “branding (as currently practiced) is dead.”[9] A 2012 article entitled “How Regis McKenna Defined Real-Time Marketing” explained that real-time marketing “is a way of thinking and philosophy that requires businesses to meet the demands of an always-on digital world” and that “includes the convergence of search, social, and real-time content production and distribution, with an expanded definition of publishing that makes social conversation and interaction as important as actual writing and digital media development.” McKenna, it was explained, “laid the groundwork for real-time marketing back in 1995” in a paper for the Harvard Business Review, and fleshed out the concept in the 1997 book Real Time.
[7] McKenna is an investor and board member of several Silicon Valley firms, including BroadWare Technologies, Golden Gate Software, and Nanosys.
[21] 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.