How Strategic Messaging Shifted Focus from Components to Complete Solutions

TL/DR

onsemi is a leading global semiconductor manufacturer that provides critical power and sensing technologies through its advanced Silicon Carbide (SiC) portfolio. The company faced a significant challenge because customers viewed them primarily as a supplier of individual components rather than a provider of fully integrated system solutions, which limited their market preference. To solve this, RH Blake utilized its Growth Roadmap™ and Voice of the Customer research to develop a new messaging framework and a massive suite of technical content, including whitepapers, videos, and a market-tested name for the TREO platform. These efforts successfully generated new business opportunities and established a lasting partnership that continues to position onsemi as a thought leader in the semiconductor industry.

Company

onsemi is a major player in the global semiconductor market, providing essential power and sensing technologies. The company offers an extensive SiC portfolio designed to meet the rigorous demands of modern industrial and energy applications. As a leader in the manufacturing ecosystem, onsemi seeks to provide high-value offerings that solve complex technical challenges for its global customer base.

Situation

Onsemi encountered a significant strategic hurdle with its SiC portfolio. While target audiences possessed a deep familiarity with the company’s individual components, they remained largely unaware of onsemi’s fully integrated offerings. This perception gap forced the company to compete as a component vendor rather than as a systems partner, which limited its ability to capture the full value of its technological innovations:

Stagnant Relationships and Missed Revenue

The lack of awareness regarding integrated solutions directly hindered onsemi’s ability to maximize its footprint within its current customer base. Existing clients often overlooked onsemi for larger system-level needs because they simply did not realize the company provided more than just individual parts. This disconnect meant that even loyal customers looked elsewhere for comprehensive power and sensing solutions, resulting in missed revenue opportunities and a failure to strengthen long-term strategic relationships.

The Struggle for Market Preference

Beyond its current client list, onsemi faced a major obstacle in attracting new business. The company struggled to build brand preference among new audiences who viewed the market through the lens of complete system integration. Without a clear messaging framework to articulate the value of its integrated SiC portfolio, onsemi found it difficult to differentiate itself from competitors who were more effectively communicating their system-level capabilities. This lack of market preference acted as a barrier to entry for high-growth sectors, requiring a complete overhaul of how the company presented its technology to the world.

Solution

To bridge the gap between component awareness and system-level preference, onsemi partnered with RH Blake to implement a strategic marketing framework rooted in objective market data. This collaboration utilized the proprietary RH Blake Growth Roadmap™ process, which combined intensive Voice of the Customer research with internal stakeholder workshops to define a clear and differentiated path for market engagement

The RH Blake Growth Roadmap™ and Voice of the Customer Research

RH Blake initiated the engagement by deploying its proprietary Growth Roadmap™ process to ground the strategy in objective market data. The team conducted a comprehensive Voice of the Customer program, which included interviewing onsemi stakeholders and internal subject matter experts. Simultaneously, we interviewed end customers to understand their pain points, purchasing drivers, and technical requirements.

This phase also involved a series of internal workshops designed to uncover the company’s unique value propositions. By gathering these primary insights, the team identified exactly where the market’s perception of onsemi’s SiC portfolio diverged from the company’s capabilities.

This rigorous research phase ensured that the subsequent marketing strategy was built on a foundation of real-world feedback rather than internal assumptions. The research provided a definitive guide for how onsemi would pivot from a component provider to a system-level solutions partner.

Strategic Messaging and Campaign Theme Framework

Following the research phase, RH Blake synthesized the findings to build a robust messaging framework and a campaign theme framework. This deliverable served as the North Star for all external communications, ensuring that every marketing touchpoint conveyed a unified value proposition.

The team focused on developing differentiated messaging that explicitly highlighted the benefits of onsemi’s integrated SiC offerings compared to individual components. These creative themes were designed to resonate with high-level decision-makers and engineers alike, bridging the gap between technical specs and business outcomes. By establishing these core themes early, onsemi ensured that its brand voice remained consistent across global markets and diverse customer segments. This created a powerful, repeatable narrative that allowed onsemi to claim a position of thought leadership in the competitive semiconductor space.

Integrated Content Execution and Multi-Channel Deployment

To bring the new messaging to market, RH Blake produced and launched a comprehensive suite of integrated marketing assets. These included high-impact webpages, educational blog posts, and professional videos that explained the complexities of the SiC portfolio in an engaging way.

The team also authored technical whitepapers to provide the deep-dive evidence required by engineering audiences to validate onsemi’s system-level claims. This multi-channel approach ensured that the content reached target audiences at every stage of their buying journey, from initial awareness to final technical evaluation.

By deploying these assets through a structured go-to-market plan, onsemi saturated its target markets with its new value-driven narrative. The outcome of this exhaustive content deployment was a measurable increase in engagement and a shift in how the industry perceived onsemi’s technological breadth.

Technology Platform Naming and the TREO Launch

As the partnership evolved, RH Blake provided specialized support for the launch of a novel technology platform eventually named TREO. The team followed the established Growth Roadmap™ to interview onsemi executives and generate a wide range of naming options for the new platform. Rather than selecting a name based on internal preference, RH Blake tested these options in the market to see which ones resonated most effectively with potential customers.

Once TREO was selected, RH Blake helped launch the platform by developing a full complement of marketing assets, including dedicated videos, messaging, and webpages.

This rigorous naming and launch process ensured that the new platform entered the market with immediate clarity and impact. onsemi launched a new sub-brand that complemented onsemi’s broader SiC portfolio and reinforced its reputation for continuous innovation

Results

RH Blake delivered transformative outcomes for onsemi, successfully pivoting the brand from a component manufacturer to a recognized leader in integrated silicon carbide systems.

Cultivating Awareness and Global Market Preference

The integrated campaign fundamentally shifted the industry’s perception of onsemi by moving the conversation from individual components to comprehensive, high-value systems. By deploying a refined messaging framework across global channels, onsemi built deep-seated awareness and a strong sense of preference among its primary target audiences. This new positioning ensured that when engineers and decision-makers sought sophisticated power and sensing solutions, they viewed onsemi as a strategic partner rather than just a parts supplier. This shift in preference lowered barriers to entry in new markets and established a foundation for long-term brand loyalty.

Generating New High-Value Business Opportunities

The campaign did more than just improve brand perception, too. It drove tangible growth by generating a steady stream of new business opportunities and targeted engagement. By providing technical depth through whitepapers and educational videos, the strategy reached high-level decision-makers precisely when they were evaluating complex system architectures. Additionally, the program allowed onsemi to strengthen its existing relationships by cross-selling its integrated capabilities to clients who had previously only purchased single components. This dual approach of attracting new prospects while expanding the footprint within current accounts resulted in a more robust and diverse sales pipeline.

Sustaining Growth Through the TREO Platform Launch

This successful product launch demonstrated onsemi’s ability to consistently introduce new technologies with clarity and impact, reinforcing its standing as a dominant force in the semiconductor market.