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Regis McKenna: The P.R. Guru of Silicon Valley : CloutWith High­Tech Firms and Press Is Great, but Some AreDisenchantedAugust 04, 1985 | VICTOR F. ZONANA | Times Staff Writer

McKenna agrees that attracting and retaining good managers has been a problem. Last year, he appointeda president, Paul Dali, former general manager of the Apple II division at Apple Computer. And McKennais bringing in other top officials from Intel and Montgomery Securities, a San Francisco­based brokeragefirm with a well­respected research department. He's also working on a plan to distribute equity in thefirm to key officials.

And to those clients who are dissatisfied with the firm's performance, McKenna offers what has becomehis standard spiel. "Public relations is a process that takes years and years of work," he says, adding thathe often tries to dampen the expectations of brilliant entrepreneurs who have spent years nurturing aproduct and want instant recognition.

McKenna insists that he is no run­of­the­mill p.r. man, and many loyal clients agree. "We are more part ofthe electronics industry than part of the p.r. industry," he says. "I've never studied public relations; I'vestudied technology."

McKenna was raised in a devoutly Catholic home in Pittsburgh and studied existential philosophy atDuquesne University. Although four of his brothers became priests or monks, Regis took another path,marrying at age 20 and getting a job as an advertising salesman for a local company that publishedtechnical magazines.

Worked for Pioneer

That was his introduction to technology. He was transferred to California, went to work for an advertisingagency and soon thereafter took an advertising and public relations job with General Micro Electronics,an early maker of semiconductors.

Today, McKenna is an active participant in the Semiconductor Industry Assn. and is president of theNational Commission on Industrial Innovation, a group patterned after a statewide body created byformer California Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. Its members include Robert Swanson, chairman ofGenentech, and Sens. John Chaffee and John Danforth. McKenna avoids membership in associations ofp.r. people.

Says Krause of Apple: "Regis is more of a strategist than a p.r. man. He advises most members of ourexecutive staff, and he's a frequent lecturer at Apple." Krause, who has taken some flak from the press forher bosses' "no comment" posture during Apple's current downturn, was unperturbed by McKennastaffer Cunningham's boast about being better informed about Apple goings­on. "We're both well tunedin," Krause says diplomatically.

"Fundamentally," McKenna says, "the best p.r. is a good product. The more you promote a bad product,the faster you'll go out of business." That's because the computer business is driven by word­of­mouth."If you're happy with a product you buy, you'll tell three people about it," McKenna says. "If you'reunhappy, you'll tell 11 people."

Cultivates Opinion Makers

His belief in word­of­mouth led McKenna to recognize, early on, the importance of the computer industryanalysts, leading retailers, software developers and other "luminaries" that journalists turn to whenshaping stories. And McKenna cultivates these "thought leaders" assiduously.

"Ninety percent of the world's views are controlled by the 10% who are opinion makers," he says. "A goodjob of public relations demands that you develop relations with relatively few people."

Those few people, in McKenna's view, included editors of business publications as well as the trade pressthat Silicon Valley public relations people were used to dealing with. "The thing we did differently,"

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McKenna says, "was to talk about technology to the business press. And, believe me, it took a while beforeForbes and some of these other magazines began looking at technology as a business."

As evidence, he cites a 1974 letter from Forbes telling him not to send information on West Coastcompanies with annual sales of less than $50 million that weren't listed on the New York Stock Exchange.(The company McKenna was pitching was Intel, 20% of which is now owned by IBM. The company's 8088microprocessor is the guts of the IBM Personal Computer.)

McKenna got his big break in p.r. as marketing communications director for National Semiconductor in1967. Charles E. Sporck, the company's founder, has been quoted as saying: "Regis spread the idea thatwe were a technological leader long before we actually were."

Sporck couldn't be reached for comment, and McKenna professes to take umbrage at the remark. "What Idid with National was to get them exposure in the business press. This was a company whose sales hadgrown from $3 million to $80 million in four years." (National Semiconductor now has more than $1.5billion in annual revenues.)

Plans More Books

Today, McKenna insists, you can't fool the public. "Journalists are smart enough to go to theinfrastructure"­­his term for the industry analysts and others who lend perspective to stories about thetechnology industry. And, though he admits to cultivating the infrastructure, he says you can't deceivethose people, either.

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