Tech Company Prepares for Acquisition

It was really clear when we met with Postini for the first time that they had simply outgrown their brand, a problem that is actually pretty common in the business world. They had started out life as an anti-spam point solution; a very good one certainly, but still anti-spam for individual systems. And their brand and positioning were great for that company.

But, when they came to us, they simply weren’t that company anymore. Through the years they had developed new anti-spam and security modules, had grown their customer base tremendously, and were now serving up a unique and effective enterprise-quality internet security suite.

A Suite Solution

Their evolution had pushed them in the direction of corporate security and policy enforcement. No longer protecting individual systems, but entire corporate networks. They did this by putting a protection layer around the company; a layer that inspected IP addresses and other metadata of every email. They were filtering over 1 billion email messages daily, and knew the sources of much of the spam, scam, and virus creators across the internet. Their solution was incredibly effective, with many of their clients reporting an immediate 90% reduction in spam as soon as Postini was implemented.

Reposition for the C-Suite

Clearly their original brand and messaging no longer worked! They were no longer selling to only network engineers, but also to the C-suite. They needed to focus on the business benefits rather than just the technology. They needed to speak in C-suite as well as network engineer. And, they needed to be able to tell the story in 15 seconds in order to get and keep an executive’s attention.

Starting from meetings with the heads of marketing, engineering, and sales, we took their new story and crafted a clear, concise, and compelling message that could be delivered over any media—from the back of a napkin to an executive presentation. In addition we modified their brand and took it from consumer-y and cartoony to an elegant, business-focused image.

How Sweet It Is

The result? Eight months after the rebrand/reposition, Postini was acquired by Google, where they are now one of the largest and busiest corporate security systems in the world. They protect every gmail accounts as well as Google corporate, and the networks of countless businesses around the world.