Branding Matters
Last updated: Nov 30, 2020
About 12 hours or so ago, Alastair Macgibbon (Australian Spook Directorate) and John Paitaridis (Optus) announced a new company. Twelve Australian Cybersecurity companies will be joined into one CoolFriends group.
I think this news is fantastic. I have spoken to many of their employees at conferences in the past. They are talented, enthusiastic, and driven InfoSec professionals.
Who knows, maybe some of the traditional industry players (Big4 Consultancies) might have some competition now.
So, excellent work Big Mac!
However…
I think that it’s really important how you convey yourself in this world. How you look, how you write, how you speak. Everything matters when creating an image, when creating a brand.
In this case, CyberCX falls flat sadly.
Name
I can’t help but pronounce the name phonetically, guess I still need to grow up.
CyberSex… hehe
Look, the company name is tainted. I can’t imagine any InfoSec professional would be proud to tell their partner where they work. They would have to specifically pronounce it Cyber-Sea-Ex over the sound of snickering relatives.
I don’t think it’s a good start. Personally, I’d be a bit embarassed..
If anything goes wrong for the company in the next few years, the meme train won’t slow down. Heck, 2 mins, done! I love the companies working underneath the umbrella, but come on, who didn’t see this coming..
Core Values
Values and principles are a great way to set your brand apart from competitors.
VS
The issue is when your first principle is verbatim Amazon’s first principle.. well..
I can’t help but feel like i’m dealing with something without an identity. Something that is inauthentic. A cybersecurity brand should convey a message of trust and security. Not second-guess immediately.
Take something like Spotify’s principles.
They’ve explained in detail how they came up with these values. It’s authentic, it belongs to the company, it’s Spotify!
Final Thoughts
I wouldn’t be surprised if the company rebrands soon, or at least starts to paraphrase their values instead of plagiarising. Maybe the decision-makers they are marketting at aren’t immature like me.
I’d like to think Big Mac may be a true blue larrikin (at least going by the colour scheme) and thought the Double Entendre might make for a good laugh.
Either way, keen to see how this unfolds and congratulations to all the awesome people who get to work together in an Aussie CyberSuperGroup now. :D
Cole