- Client
- Beta-i
- Industry
- Innovation
- Location
- Lisbon
- Engagement
- 2023 — 2025
The Square · Case in the record
How Beta-i moved from a Portuguese hub to a European innovation partner.
A repositioning exercise that turned twelve years of programme delivery into a durable European story — and made corporate innovation leaders across three markets pick up the phone first.
The Square
Vol. 04 · No. 01
The story before the story.
Business · Market · Communication
Business context
Beta-i had spent more than a decade building one of Iberia's most respected open-innovation practices. The delivery record was there. The European positioning was not.
Market challenge
Corporate innovation leaders in Paris, Berlin and Amsterdam knew the work but not the name. Public procurement conversations kept defaulting to larger consultancies whose credentials were louder, if not deeper.
Communication challenge
The company needed a story that travelled — one that could be quoted in a French innovation summit and a German enterprise roundtable without translation loss.
Strategy first. Everything else is downstream.
Movement 01
Research
We started with a listening tour across three European innovation ecosystems, mapping how corporates were framing the questions Beta-i already answered well.
Movement 02
Positioning
The repositioning centred on a single claim: Beta-i doesn't run programmes, it operates innovation infrastructure — a category that let us compete on scope rather than scale.
Movement 03
Narrative
We built a three-layer narrative: a European thesis on corporate–startup collaboration, a proof layer of case evidence, and a leadership layer of named voices.
Movement 04
Execution
Execution focused on earned authority rather than paid volume — long-form pieces, invited panels, and a small number of set-piece events.
Organised by strategic pillar, not by chronology.
Editorial archive
European Positioning
One story, three markets, no translation loss.
A single narrative architecture designed to work in French, German and English innovation conversations without dilution.
Selected deliverables
- European positioning framework
- Trilingual messaging house
- Executive briefing decks
Media Relations
Tier-one European innovation press, as a matter of habit.
A deliberate press programme placing Beta-i voices inside the innovation and enterprise media that its buyers actually read.
Selected deliverables
- Sustained relationships with 25+ European journalists
- Feature pieces in Sifted, Handelsblatt, Les Echos
Thought Leadership
Publishing what the market wished existed.
An annual report on corporate–startup collaboration that became a reference document across three ecosystems.
Selected deliverables
- Annual State of Open Innovation report
- Op-ed programme
- Podcast partnerships
Category authorship, not category participation.
European reach
Coverage extended into France, Germany and the Netherlands as core recurring markets.
Pipeline quality
Inbound conversations with European corporates rose materially, replacing outbound as the primary channel.
Category authorship
The annual report is now cited as a reference document by three EU-level innovation bodies.
Selected pages from the archive.
Curated · Not a carousel
We stopped introducing ourselves. Buyers now open the conversation with our own language — that is what a good communications partner buys you.
Beta-i
Managing Partner
What this story taught us.
The strategic residue — the ideas we now bring to every next brief.
Lesson 01
Category is a communications decision.
The market let us define what Beta-i sells because we defined it clearly first.
Lesson 02
One story, three markets.
A well-built narrative doesn't need re-authoring at the border. It needs disciplined localisation.
Lesson 03
Publish the reference document.
The most durable share of voice comes from being cited, not quoted.
Three more from the archive.
Let's write your next story.
If you're building a company that deserves a stronger story than the market currently tells about it, we should talk.
Talk to usCross-border communications · Lisbon · Madrid