In 2021, I worked as the VP of Marketing for an early-stage tech company in New York. 

I was in deep discussion with my boss, our CEO and co-founder, and our CRO about our Go-To-Market challenges. 

Among the things that we all agreed upon was the fact that our brand name was causing a real problem in the buyer perception, and getting us ruled out even before the RFP (Request for Proposal) stages of the software procurement process.

Our company was being branded as a complex software in the market, and at least 50% of the target market was giving us the cold shoulder.

Thus, we were left with no choice but to rebrand the company and product. 

In my opinion, this was one of the best strategic decisions we made in terms of immediate results in the short term, while simultaneously building a new brand identity.

In this episode of Fresh Salmon, I discuss the strategic details of the rebranding, and how to think about it at a high level. 

But, let’s start with a few fundamentals.

The Brand Architecture - Fundamentals

You will typically want to structure your brand in three basic ways, at a very fundamental level.

1. Master Brand:

It is the most commonly used approach, especially for tech companies. It's called the Master Brand approach, where the company name serves as the brand name, and each product name describes what it does. 

It's simply a matter of calling it what it is.

Apple is a great example of this approach. 

Their products are named Apple Watch, Apple iPhone, Apple Music, etc. 

2. House of Brands:

In this approach, the corporate brand is a holding company for individual product brands with unique names, brands, and marketing.

Several FMCG companies have adopted this approach, including Unilever, Coca-Cola, Kraft, and Proctor and Gamble. 

3. Endorsed:

Using this approach, a corporate brand is a holding company for individual product brands. 

In this brand architecture, there are multiple sub-brands that are supported by the corporate brand, providing a "stamp of approval.".

Each sub-brand has its own identity.  In the hospitality industry, this is most prevalent. 

As an example, Marriott. There are several Marriott-endorsed brands, including Courtyard, Residence Inn, Fairfield Inn & Suites, etc.

The Master Brand Approach

The Master Brand approach is the most widely used method, and the most recommended for the tech companies. 

There are several reasons why it’s recommended: 

• Enhances customer understanding of your offerings and makes them easier to navigate

• Enhances the marketability of new products by reducing the amount of investment required

• It reduces the investment in generating new names, both creatively and trademarking

• Maximizes the company's investment in the overall brand—especially in the early stages of a brand's development with limited budgets

• Facilitates the extension and translation of positive attributes from one successful product to another. One product that is loved by your customers can lift up all of your products

• It simplifies your brand positioning and your value proposition (Companies that have been successful for a long time often have a single focus, like Uber, Twitter, and Dropbox).

The Naming Conventions

When it comes to naming a brand or a product there are generally four naming conventions: 

1. Generic

Terminology that is used by the industry, usually the common or class name of the goods or services. An example would be a mobile phone, a selfie light, etc.

2. Descriptive

It is a real, recognizable word that describes a product's function or form; it tells us what it is or what it does. Examples include Oracle Database, Apple Watch, etc.

3. Suggestive

A word or phrase that is easily recognizable and conveys the attributes or benefits of a product. A few examples are Intuit, Sprint, SmartBook, etc.

4. Arbitrary

Invented or unusual words that acquire meaning over time. Examples include Google, Kodak, Twitter, etc.

The Case Study

Let's get back to the original story. Jorsek was the company where I was VP of Marketing in 2021. They were doing business as "easyDITA", which was the company's product name. Jorsek was the holding company.

It was positioned as a Technical Writing Tool used by Fortune 500 companies worldwide. The name "easyDITA" comes from the technology behind it, a DITA XML format. 

The DITA standard was launched by IBM in the mid-2000s, but hasn't yet become widely adopted. Essentially, the market was divided into two gangs: pro-DITA and anti-DITA.

Due to their perception of DITA's steep learning curve, the anti-DITA camp would not even touch a solution that had DITA written over it.

As soon as they saw a product or company name “easyDITA”, they had already made up their mind to strike it out.

The thing is, my company had built an intelligent user interface where users could write in plain English just like they would on a word document, and it automatically converted everything into DITA XML format behind the scenes.

The problem was - we weren’t even getting to the solution demo stage due to customer perception of the name. BIG PROBLEM!

So, this is how we went about rebranding -

We had a holding company: Jorsek, and we decided to change our brand’s name to “Heretto” from “easyDITA”.

Just to frame it - you will notice, we took the “House of Brand” approach here, since we were already under a holding company (~ Jorsek), but created a new brand name, and then used the “Arbitrary” naming convention to create the new brand: Heretto.

We were immediately freed from the DITA prison, and now we had a new identity that we could use to influence the buyer's perception, which is exactly what we did!

We not only renamed the brand, but also used the “Master Brand Approach'' for product naming. Basically, the company name serves as the brand name, and each product name describes what it does. We introduced three products to the market: 

1. Heretto CCMS (Component Content Management System)

2. Heretto API

3. Heretto Portal

The whole rebrand helped tremendously in shaping the Go-To-Market strategy for the company: 

We freed ourselves from the buyer perception due to the old name ( ~ easyDITA).

We offered multiple products along with our robust platform (core product = Heretto CCMS) to expand our offerings beyond technical writing tool.

We created a new category: Content Operations. 

After rebranding, we also received recognition from Gartner, naming us in a category or two. Sweet, isn’t it?

A key takeaway from this case study is that you don't just rename your brand for the sake of changing it, you do it to improve your Go-To-Market strategy and increase your revenue.

Most importantly, you do it using a framework so that you are creating the right brand architecture and product naming.

Here is an image from Times Square NYC from our launch day - 

Interesting Thing That I Read This Week

John Bonini dropping some 🔥🔥🔥

Tweet That I Noticed This Week

My friend, Jared, shared this amazing advertisement by Mercedes. TOP! 

What Do You Think?

This concludes this edition of Fresh Salmon.

I would like to hear what you thought of today's newsletter.

Also, let’s connect on Twitter, LinkedIn, or TikTok.

Cheers,

Vivek

PS. I love you ❤️