BUILDING A Brand From The Ground Up

Team: Shannon Smith (Art Director), Dan Owen (Experience Designer)

The Ask: Build a brand that will grow with our company.

After raising capital for our cloud computing startup, NetThunder, we needed to build a brand that communicated our value proposition, defined our company values and inspired our customers, and employees.

Situation: We are a minnow in a sea full of sharks.

Amazon, Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle are just a few of the multi-billion dollar companies with thousands of employees in the cloud computing space. We had five guys working out of a small office.

Problem: Trust

Many years ago in the computing industry, there was a saying that “No one ever got fired for buying IBM”. While IBM has been displaced as the market leader, large companies are reluctant to commit to a company that isn’t a brand name.

Insight: Size is not always a strength.

In the Japanese martial art of aikido, practitioners execute techniques that use an opponent’s superior physical force against them. Our technology uses this principle to outperform our competition. While our competitors have tremendous resources with which to build their products, these large investments can trap these behemoths into older technologies. Our platform uses machine learning to maximize performance on any server. While an upgrade to the newest server or drive would cost competitors millions in labor and parts, connecting a server to our plug and play platform is done with one click. As a result, our platform will always have a tremendous advantage in the speed of deployment of the newest technology as well as the cost of adopting it.

Solution: Emphasize our platform’s ability to adapt to the newest technology.

Build an identity that builds exponential improvement into our company’s DNA.
Identify the ideal target for our product’s advantages.
Position our product using a relatable example.
Show our customers where our product can take their company.

Brand Identity:

Hack-ER Mentality

Better will not work for us. For this company to succeed, we cannot make incremental improvements, but rather exponential. Founded by hackers, we search for flaws to exploit that others have overlooked in search of advantages over the competition. Every aspect of our company from marketing to the products must be 10X better than our competitors. It is essential to our survival. We hack out the “-ER” to create the incredible.

Target:

Web 3.0 Startups

Technologies such as AI, machine learning, and augmented reality require tremendous computing power to build and improve their products. We can deploy the new technology faster than our competitors and with lower costs. Additionally, startups in this space will have fewer gatekeepers and be more likely to take a chance with our product if it can give them a significant leg up.

Positioning:

We are Amazon Web Services (AWS) for Web 3.0.

AWS created computer infrastructure that was flexible and cheap for digital entrepreneurs. This offering allowed these individuals to create apps and online stores without tremendous investment in servers and know-how allowing for e-commerce and app development to take flight.

The creators of Web 3.0 need high-performance computing for their products as their predecessors needed flexibility. With our platform’s ability to automatically optimize new server models upon installation, our customers have the permanent performance edge that they need to build the world of tomorrow while keeping capital investment low.

BRAND TOOLBOX

Archetype:

We used an archetype to match tone of voice for every touchpoint with customers from tweets to package design.

The Maverick:

We are irreverent to authority when our convictions say we should be. We are unconventional, but with a purpose. We have a vision of the way the world can be and will work as hard a we possibly can to make it a reality.

Real Life Example: John McCain

Regardless of what you think of his politics, John McCain was a badass. Born the son of a wealthy admiral, McCain chose service to his country as his life’s mission. After attending the Naval Academy, he served as a fighter pilot during Vietnam where he was shot down, taken prisoner, and tortured for five years, because he refused to leave without his men. After his release, he became an influential Senator, who regularly defied his party to vote his conscience. He set a tremendous example of how a Maverick can change the world.

Tone of Voice:

We chose our words carefully in order to be clear with our meaning. We are confident, not cocky and always promote a better way forward instead of putting down someone else.