Challenge

Ignite a firewall provider’s brand presence

SonicWall is a corporate firewall provider that was spun out of Dell. SonicWall firewalls where installed in most Dell computers, but the brand had little marketing support, equity or marketplace awareness. Following the purchase of SonicWall by Francisco Partners, Imaginuity was hired to relaunch the brand, establish leadership in the mid-market segment where SonicWall was strongest, and test the waters of the larger enterprise market segment dominated by well-known brands like Palo Alto Networks and Cisco. Additionally, we were tasked to develop lead-generation programs.

Solution

Flipping industry-wide messaging on its head 

From a review of competitive creative messaging, most used stereotypical images of hooded hackers infiltrating computer systems in the dark. The overall feeling in the vertical was one of fear. We took the opposite path and developed a campaign on the idea of “Fear Less”. Ransomware, email phishing attacks and malware are all bad and pose significant corporate risk, but with SonicWall firewalls in place, customers can fear these threats less.

As the centerpiece of our campaign, we created majestic creatures all made up of network wiring and cabling who protect from evil threats, with campaign messaging focused on ideas like the ability to “Innovate More and Fear Less” and “Thrive More and Fear Less” because of SonicWall. This global campaign launched simultaneously in seven languages in 12 countries.