How to Get Buy-In from Marketing for UVC LEDs

While exploring UVC LEDs for water disinfection applications, product managers, design engineers, and R&D professionals will inevitably need to get buy-in for this technology from their marketing department. Marketers can determine the best way to position this technology as a benefit in your product- whether it’s a water purifier, refrigerator, faucet, or some other system that promotes water disinfection. This article will help you show your marketing team the benefits of using UVC LED disinfection technology in your product.

Marketers are insistent that anything added to their end-product will solve a problem for the target audience. As a result, you’ll need to make the case for why UV disinfection is something consumers will actually care about.

Access to safe drinking water is not just a third world issue—it’s a pressing need in developed nations, too. For instance, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, contaminated drinking water is the third largest concern in the United States. Moreover, contaminated drinking water outbreaks are on the rise (source). Couple this with the fact that two out of three U.S. consumers drink purified or bottled water, and it becomes painfully clear that the majority of Americans don’t trust the water that’s flowing from their taps for consumption.

Traditional physical filters, such as charcoal, remove impurities from water in the system. While this process filters-out chlorine and can improve the taste of water, the primary reason for chlorine is to help prevent bacteria growth. Absent the chlorine, any water that remains in a water pitcher, coffee maker or other appliance could be harboring bacteria that is now free to grow and multiply.

Implementing UVC-based disinfection after water passes through a physical filter helps the water retain its taste. This approach also prevents water fouling from occurring because UVC light inactivates the pathogens that cannot be trapped by a physical filter. By integrating solutions like UVC LED-based water reactors, manufacturers can ensure that water is bacteria-free before it is dispensed from their system.

Now that your marketing team sees the need for UV disinfection in consumer and commercial appliances, it’s time to explain why UVC LEDs are the best choice for end-users. Compared to other options in the market, UVC LEDs offer many technical benefits like DC powered, small footprint and optimized germicidal output. However, the bottom line for your marketing team is that UVC LEDs allow your product to speak to end-user problems and desires better than lamp-based solutions.

UVC LEDs are a proven method of water disinfection, and incorporating UVC LEDs in a water reactor can eliminate harmful, high profile pathogens like e. coli and legionella from the water before it reaches a consumer’s glass. This means your customers can be assured that the water flowing from your appliance has been disinfected thanks to the consistent and effective performance of UVC LED technology.

Generally speaking, consumers like it when products are easy-to-use and work as expected—with little to no maintenance—for the duration of the product’s lifetime. When it comes to products that rely on UV lamps for water disinfection, there are ongoing maintenance costs to replace the UV lamp inside the system. When it comes to UVC LEDs, there’s no need to buy additional components to continuously provide disinfected water. Klaran UVC LEDs are designed to operate for the lifetime of the system.

Systems that use UV lamps are also more likely to require maintenance due to water fouling that stems from mineral build-up. In a UV lamp-based system, heat from the lamp hits the quartz and raises the temperature of the water flowing through the system. When the water temperature rises, it can cause minerals to build-up in the system. Since there is no front-side heat from a UVC LED it doesn’t cause the water to heat-up and, therefore, will not cause minerals to accumulate.

What would it mean to your business if your product’s packaging could feature the eco-friendly label or icon? When the Minamata Convention on Mercury begins its ban on mercury products in 2020, not all UV disinfection solutions will be considered eco-friendly. For example, while UV lamps may be the incumbent technology for disinfection in water purification systems, these products use mercury. UVC LEDs, on the other hand, are mercury-free making them the eco-friendly option for UV disinfection.

Without marketing’s support of new technologies or features, it can be hard to move innovation from the R&D arena to commercialization. By showing your team how this technology addresses their customer needs, they’ll have a better understanding of how UVC LEDs solve a growing need in the market and why this particular technology is the ideal choice for UV disinfection.