Would McAfee Rebranding Be In The Right Direction This Time?

Those in the industry long enough know?that nothing?stands still in the infocomm technology sector.

For three decades, the cybersecurity scene was largely anchored by the trio of Symantec/Norton, McAfee and Trend Micro, at least in?Singapore and this part of the region. They are also seen as the grand daddies of antivirus software.?

Branding?is probably one of the most elusive disciplines in the broader fields of marketing and communications.

Those in the fields of marketing and communications would concur?that building brand equity, like raising a child, takes a village.

To reinvent themselves, the trio had to constantly change.

In my view, McAfee is one of the most successful brands ever built to stay at the top of the minds of endusers. Paradoxically, it has also?the?most tumultuous?and colourful brand history in its reinvention journey.

McAfee Corp, as it is formally known, has gone through several rounds of rebranding. From McAfee Associates to Network Associates before going back to McAfee. It merged with Intel, became Intel Security and later, back again to McAfee. Between those periods, there were several more mergers and acquisitions.

It is going through another form of re-re-branding.

This time, one of the key McAfee Corp's?investors, TPG, has spun out part of McAfee to another private equity firm, Symphony Technology Group (STG).

Since its early days when its late founder John McAfee, who by all reports, was relatively sane when he started the company in 1987, took the company public and managed it throughout the 1990s. It was probably up until McAfee Corp was sold to Intel in 2011 that things started to change.

And each strategy to change became more bizarre than the previous one.

This was due to the fact that McAfee Corp was synonymous with the late founder and every cranky move he made, made headlines. And despite the change of hands in ownership, such as a complete name change to Intel Security, the industry as a whole still saw McAfee and its founder as inseparable.

Ask any branding practitioner and it is not surprising to hear that McAfee has been one of the most iconic and enduring brands ever created in IT, with huge credit to the late?founder. Many may also agree, the strength of a brand can be a double-edge sword.

This also makes McAfee a good case study of the proverbial notion of being "a victim of its own success", and maybe a good classic to be built into the syllabus of branding coursework in future studies.

With the announcement in early?2021 that McAfee Corp has split into two; consumer and enterprise. Its consumer business, according to SEC filings, is still going to remain as McAfee.

Enterprise business, on the other hand, is now known as McAfee Enterprise, according to channels update, would be owned and run by STG.

STG also acquired FireEye product businesses announced in Jun 2021. With McAfee Enterprise positioned as a standalone entity. Would FireEye's products be subsumed and eventually faded into McAfee Enterprise's?

Some industry observers are sceptical about the separation as they feel that full-stack cybersecurity products bring better value. There is also a camp of McAfee's partners which reckon the split a good move.

McAfee, TPG, STG and their shareholders, probably more than anybody else, want this to work.

Time and the industry are always the best validators if this direction would be right this?time.?

#McAfee #Cybersecurity #STG #TPG #Symantec #Trendmicro #FireEye #Branding