CA Technologies
Launch
Visual Systems
Analytics
Identity
Video
Helping a technology giant turn
a cloud into a silver lining
Infrastructure software powerhouse, CA (formerly Computer Associates), built its business on the mainframe and infrastructure software, and for decades has been considered a leading provider of management solutions to the world's largest companies. In 2008, management ushered in a strategic shift to align the firm's growth with changes in the overall technology landscape. Building on a new bold strategy to move strongly into cloud computing, and a series of acquisitions, CA has positioned itself for growth via emerging technologies, and has asked Lippincott to help reposition the brand to signal this new chapter.
Challenges
Crafting a fresh, compelling narrative for a familiar brand
From a brand perspective, the question was straightforward: how could we shape the CA brand into a strategic asset in the midst of this shift in corporate strategy? With such a long history as a mainframe management company, the CA brand needed a new brand story and an enhanced brand experience, one that focused on a fresh audience (CIOs) in a clear and compelling manner.
These strategic elements linked directly to the design challenges CA faced in the wake of this major shift. Its visual identity system, while well structured, lacked the energy and vibrancy necessary to break though and differentiate from other B2B technology peers.
The recent acquisitions also raised brand architecture challenges: how should newly acquired brands be absorbed? What is the best way to manage equity transfer in both directions post-acquisition? What are product naming implications? CA needed a structured brand architecture decision methodology and a codified set of activities to manage the corporate, category and product brands in a cohesive manner.
Moreover, CA's customer experience needed to be examined in order to identify the gaps and help prioritize the customer touchpoints that drove major impact on the experience. With myriad customer touchpoints and an experience that spans pre, point and post-sale customer journey stages, it was imperative to determine the most important ways that CA could improve its customer experience in order to ensure customer loyalty and help capture market share.
Solutions
Reposition to signal change and communicate innovation
We conducted deep qualitative research in the form of one-on-one customer and executive interviews, consumer focus groups, and industry analyst interviews. We developed brand essence hypotheses across relevant white-space areas and tested them with a robust market-based quantitative survey. Lippincott also conducted a deep-dive brand health assessment to establish a benchmark score against which our progress could be tracked.
For CA, it came down to its core strengths in infrastructure management. With CA software, IT departments could garner the degree of insight and control necessary to robustly manage emerging technologies to make your business work faster with a greater level of flexibly. After a rigorous analysis, the voice of the customer was clearly heard through our research and the new brand essence was born.
The basic story of IT and business agility would help CA to stand out as the enabler of speed, flexibility, and control. This led to a corporate name change from "CA" to the broader, more easily understood "CA Technologies", as well as a vibrant, flexible, pictogram-driven visual identity system that was unlike anything the B2B technology industry had ever seen. The system was rolled out into a broad initial advertising campaign under the guise of "We Can", and it included print, TV and digital. It also came to life at CA World, the company's major annual conference for customers.
On the customer experience front, our customer science group has developed a model that proved the importance of priority touchpoints to help task forces at CA Technologies prioritize and develop initiatives that close the gaps.
Results
Agility made possible
CA Technologies is firing on all cylinders and is becoming recognized within the industry for its cutting-edge cloud and virtualization management capabilities. The new brand is resonating with customers, the analyst community and the investment community. Customers are noting a renewed sense of vigor, while awareness, consideration and likelihood to purchase metrics show signs of significant improvement from initial baseline results.
Marketing and strategy teams at CA Technologies now approach acquisitions with a codified set of rules and decision-making criteria to ensure all future acquisitions are handled in the way that maximizes equity transfer and helps build the master brand. This new approach is saving time, money and creating consistency across product categories.
Meanwhile, the new design scheme continues to turn heads through marketing campaigns that urge customers and partners to rethink what they know about CA Technologies. These communications are telling the story of how CA Technologies makes agility possible, so your IT and business can better compete, better innovate and thrive. It's a message customers love hearing.