All this Opportunity is Making Me Hungry

It’s not often in a career as a marketing leader that you get to launch a new brand.

It can be more complicated when the brand represents three well-known product lines that are trusted by customers around the globe. Because as humans we are resistant to change – even though we all know that with change comes new opportunities.

So, it’s in that spirit of new opportunity that I’d like to introduce you to Arctera – the name of a new company carved out of Veritas Technologies that combines the strength of its Data Compliance, InfoScale and Backup Exec businesses.

At this point, you might be wondering:

• What does this brand stand for?

• Where does the name come from?

• Why the carve-out in the first place?

Let’s start with that last question first: as CEO Lawrence Wong wrote, we believe customers like you will be better served by allowing the Arctera team to provide greater focus on these three lines of business versus when they had to share the limelight with the enterprise data protection business that has historically been the “center of gravity” at Veritas.

As for the name, Arctera will help manage data throughout the “arc” of its lifecycle. And “tera”, of course, is a nod to both the scale at which we operate and the way folks in the data business tend to license products (TB). It might even hint at our eventual plans for world domination… 🙂

But, importantly, let’s dig a bit deeper into what the brand stands for. As we asked customers and partners how they feel about our products, we kept hearing words like “reliable”, “trustworthy”, and “safe” – which is great considering how important data is to everyone these days.Interestingly, when we interviewed employees, they focused on terms such as “innovative” and “strategic” but also felt somewhat “restrained” and that what we have is “the best kept secret in the industry”.

So, when it came to brand, we knew that it was time to express our intent to carry forward that hard-earned customer trust while also emphasizing what we believe is ahead. Our internal folks can’t wait to convert that innovation-based potential energy into kinetic energy that will fuel additional customer value. That’s what we’ve built into both our brand values and visual identity.

On our homepage, you’ll see a lot of stable, trustworthy blue and teal, but with a pop of orange representing the spark of energy beneath. One other thing that you’ll hopefully notice is the modern simplicity of design. That’s another important brand attribute because, fundamentally, Arctera exists to simplify the complex data management tasks you face. And we hope you hold us to that, while we continue to earn your trust each and every day.

Another daunting part about launching a new brand is, to start with, it’s relatively unknown. I’ve been asked by a number of my marketing colleagues how much we want to invest in making our brand famous. And my answer has always been the same: at the end of the day, it’ll be our products that make us famous – and, in turn, generate more brand awareness.

The analogy I’ve been using is that, today, we’re kinda like the Yum! of data management. Which may not be the best-known brand in the world, but people absolutely love and recognize Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC. What Yum! is to fast food, Arctera is to data. Sure, we’d all like you to take the opportunity to embrace our new brand identity – but what we really want is that you continue to love and experience (and want more of!) the things we create to make your lives easier.

Feedback, as they say, is a gift. I would love to hear your perspectives on the brand, just as our R&D teams want to hear from you about our solutions so we can continue to evolve them to meet your needs. As we set forth under a new name and identity, our renewed focus on this product portfolio begins with our focus on you.

And while I wait to hear from you, I’ll have a slice of pizza… and a taco… and, aw what the heck - a drumstick or two as well!