On the eve of its analyst day in New York tomorrow, Network Appliance (as was) has rebranded itself with a new name, logo, and marketing strategy in an attempt to raise its profile.
"This is the launch of the next-generation of NetApp," Dan Warmenhoven, the vendor's CEO, told Byte and Switch. "We're about to embark on a campaign to acquire new accounts."
This strategy includes changing the official company name to its nickname, NetApp, a less elaborate company logo, and a "multimillion-dollar" marketing campaign over the next four years, according to Elisa Steele, the vendor's senior vice president of marketing.
"Not enough people know who we are for us to have ambitious growth goals," she adds, explaining that around 2,000 IT managers were recently surveyed to gauge their knowledge of the company. "We discovered a pretty low awareness metric in the market about who we are and what we do."
In addition to a flurry of advertisements in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and Forbes, NetApp has also overhauled its Website and is working with search engines to boost other parts of its Internet presence.
