Know-How Exchange : Branding

Dear Gerard

We’ve spoken before or emailed, so hello again.

Having GoldenGate Software to contend with (Data warehousing solutions?) is a bit of a problem as they have spent a fortune optimising their name – even to the extent that it comes up on the first page of most searches for “Golden Gate”, way ahead of the bridge. Thankfully, your brand equity in the Golden Gate tag doesn’t appear to be too strong as yet. With a ratio of 500:1 for mentions for Calypso Banking Software and the same including Golden Gate you don’t appear to be in too much trouble ditching the name and re-educating those who already know the Golden Gate name as associated with your product rather than data warehousing. Sooo--- The effects in the marketplace of changing your name to anything under the sun appear to be manageable and negligible, so don’t fret too much over it.

Don’t fret over a major name change involving significant marketing collateral? Am I mad? No, I’m basing my advice that when under pressure, the mind makes better intuitive choices than it does reasoned ones, (Recent paper in Nature, sorry I don’t have the reference to hand) so give yourself a chance to relax your thoughts and the right answer will most likely come.

It puzzles me why you want to go for an “Aggressive” sounding name. Everyone in banking finance is “Aggressive” Sub prime mortgage sellers were “Aggressive” (For which thanks from over here in the UK where we had our first run on a bank in 154 years!) So surely differentiation in your area and for your brand would be to go against the flow. Or somehow combine it with a sharp sounding name which is not at all likely to slice your fingers off – like the Razr mobile phone, which my daughter is pestering me for.

If Golden Gate worked for your clients and your feedback from them was good, then surely more of the same is called for. It’s only being canned because you’ll get your pants sued off! Marcus’ idea of sticking with GG as a set of initials strikes me as good – you minimise the pain of transition whilst finding a suitable alternative with the same initials.

Cradle to grave: “Guardian Gate”

Or are you required to move away from all associations with Golden and Gate to satisfy the fat basta----- oops! Lawyers? “Growth Generator” sticks with what it does, but if you decide to move away from the GG angle, then why not say how it works for clients rather than what it eventually does. The last name conveyed neither, but Rapid Deployment seems to be a key USP and as the USA likes to mangle words so as to copyright them “Fast-Trax”. Make a good tag line as well, “Calypso Fast-Trax financial solutions – delivered in real time”


Nice to hear from you again and good luck with this tricky dilemma.

Steve Alker
SalesVision