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The purpose of this paper is to move forward the understanding of sociomaterial and processual aspects of innovation by describing and analysing actors’ disalignment processes regarding what resources to provide and strategies for resolution of disalignments during technology commercialisation.

The study is based on a longitudinal qualitative empirical case study depicting the commercialisation journey of a radical invention, intelligent paper, between the years of 1997 and 2009. The invention concerns cost-effective, high-volume and roll-to-roll production of printable optics and electronics enabling novel, intelligent functionalities on printed matter.

The study identifies three technology commercialisation phases which involve both destructive and constructive situations of disalignment, namely, actors’ multiplexity, punctualised actor roles and “not-programmatic” behaviours. Several strategies are utilised to resolve these, including seduction, pressuring, the introduction of new critical actors, organisational restructurings, selective silencing, career development opportunities, and joint technology development and commercialisation work.

The chosen methodology excludes investigating actors’ micro-processes during technology commercialisation and the generalisability of the findings.

The study develops the understanding of the changing, multiplex and negotiated actors’ roles as well as their disalignment regarding what resources to provide during technology commercialisation. It complements perspectives of friction in innovation making and challenges the established industrial marketing and purchasing research of stable industrial networks by presenting a case in which a radical invention results in a new business network.

Since early 2000s, several efforts have been initiated to market the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) globally, and the BaltMet Promo project is among them. Simultaneously, several other cases of supra‐national branding have emerged, e.g. the Greater Mekong region, Danube region, and Visegrad countries. Little attention has yet been paid in the literature to branding of supra‐national entities. The purpose of this paper is to discuss branding of BSR using the examples of supra‐national product building of the BaltMet Promo project (2010‐2011).

Branding BSR has faced criticism against its supra‐national perspective which may be seen as a direct competitor to city or nation branding. To shift from competition to cooperation BaltMet Promo acknowledged a bottom‐up approach and nine organisations from six countries created supra‐national products to promote tourism, talent attraction, and investments. Each product concept was built on intensive background research and transnational triple‐helix cooperation.

The case of BaltMet Promo shows that supra‐national branding benefits from a bottom‐up approach that uses concrete products and services as the core of the brand identity. To shift from competition to cooperation the partnership promoted BSR as a common region with a common work plan. Different scales of branding serve different markets. The more distant the market, such as Japan in the case of BaltMet Promo, the more cost effective supra‐regional branding becomes compared to more narrow scales of branding.

The paper introduces recent developments in supra‐national branding using data of the BaltMet Promo project. The analysis aims to contribute to product building, triple helix stakeholder cooperation, and policy making.