Apparently, formerly Computer Associates now . and becoming CA Technologies as a brand (not legally) found out the hard way that CA Inc. was non-descript and too much like California and Cocaine Anonymous to be worthy. So says a Wall Street Journal article May 17, 2010 in Corporate News (I would’ve thought that a story for the Marketing & Media section) and in.
To escape some accounting scandal, Computer Associates dashed to alter its identity to CA Inc. Seriously? I’m sure I heard about it and yawned. Now, a mere five years later (not long enough in the timeline of a corporation) with a looming gazillion dollar budget, the company is changing branding everywhere on products and marketing. Yet, it’s keeping its legal name CA Inc.
Why? Because CA Inc. didn’t describe what the company does.
So, I thought it fitting to tell you my name change story. Let’s call this storytelling or my company back story. I’m told by a dear colleague who shall remain nameless, Gregg, that storytelling is what makes the whirl funnel …
In 1991, I launched my first company – Soulati Media Relations, Inc. For seven years, I hired kids out of school, paid salaries and benefits and was president of the. I did exactly that – media relations. I was such a youngster. It was the pre Internet era, although in those days the first email addresses were from Compuserve, and they were digits!
In 2002, I came back out for the third time and named my company Marketing, Media & More, Inc. This was the early Internet era and still pre-social media. The company name was long, but it was what I offered. And, it added “marketing” to the mix because you know as public relations people the quest is always to be more marketing driven.
INTRODUCING SOULATI MEDIA, INC.
In May 2010, a name change to . With the age of social media upon us and the branding of Soulati nearly a decade old with a Web site () a blog (Soulati-‘TUDE!) and my email it was time to pull the branded family together. (Now, if you visit, you’ll see I’m still working on the presentation as this is a new deal.)
Thanks to CA Technologies, CA or Computer Associates whatever your name is for providing the platform to introduce the new me — branded and all.
Now, what’s your brand?
Congrats! I like the name change. Oozes attitude, er, solati-‘tude!
Now how did you beat me to sharing this post? Do you have a “storytelling” alert that captures all the ‘net content using that word? And, this blog is included? Way cool. Thanks for saying so; let’s catch up soon, eh?
Congrats on the rollout! Onward and upward!! 🙂
Thank you @Hellcomm. See you upstairs!
Ah, finally, the back story on the “branding issues”! I think this is great! Welcome Soulati Media!
Good Morning, Jenn! Thanks!
Great topic! We’ve been on quite a branding journey over the last ten years, and are just NOW beginning to find clarity.
Believe it or not, New England Multimedia actually started out as an on-hold marketing company called “Soundtrax Unlimited,” with hopes of becoming a music source for any agency in need of original, custom-written music for any application: film, video, advertising, whatever people needed music for!
Our on-hold clients began asking if we provided this service or that, and before we knew it, we had expanded into web design, graphic design, and more. Pretty soon, we changed our name to New England Multimedia, long before “multimedia” was in vogue. That was back in ’98 or ’99. Few people even knew what multimedia was yet, but we did!
Recently, Scott wanted to branch into more consulting, so we launched “Q Web Consulting” and tried to use it to drive traffic to New England Multimedia, but I could never get the two in sync. So last week, we tore down New England Multimedia’s website, converted over to a WordPress foundation, and now we’re bringing the Q Web Consulting content over little by little in between other posts. To cover the “consulting” aspect, we’re adding “support plans” to our website instead, and launching a support forum for our clients.
As for the music, Scott is branding himself separately now (https://scottquillin.com) as a composer-for-hire, writing a new composition every single day to show how good he is and how fast he writes. He’s coming full circle, back to the music, while continuing with New England Multimedia.
I find it hard to narrow our focus. Multimedia means everything media-related: web, audio, video, graphic design, text, and any other medium. That seems to be confusing for businesses, who are our target. Hopefully our new website will help!
What do you think?
~Michelle Quillin for New England Multimedia
https://twitter.com/NEMultimedia
What I like about your story, beyond the time you took to share it here (thank you), is that every SMB must experience these growth curve balls. To say you’ve been at this 10 years (similar to my situation) means you’ve got some fabulous tenure and maturity to back up your decisions about consolidating, specializing, integrating, etc.
What I didn’t share in my post was I launched another company several years ago to capture market share in the Web design sector for very SMBs. I’m closing that company next month and merging the intended capabilities under my new banner — the more encompassing Soulati Media rather than Marketing, Media & More.
I’m going to come check you out especially since I considered transferring to a Word Press platform for my site, too, then nixed it. How’s that going for you? Certainly simplified content management, but still some bugs as I see peeps tweeting about.
Thanks, Michelle!