Force Mobility! Cyberwar! Is Sotera a Re-Brand or a New Brand? Let's Talk...

There are likely to be many reasons why Global Defense and Technology Solutions has changed its name to Sotera Defense Solutions. In the case of this mid-sized defense contractor, though, why would it have called the change it announced on April 5 a “re-brand?”

Milspeak buzzwords aside, let's go back to basics – what is branding? The American Marketing Association says that “a brand is a customer experience represented by a collection of images and ideas; often, it refers to a symbol such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme.” So the new Sotera identity is a brand.

What does it stand for? The company's press release notes:

...the name Sotera is derived from Greek mythology and represents the spirit of safety preservation and deliverance from harm. Officials said the new name reflects the company's focus on meeting national security needs.

That's what the company's new website says:

We deliver Technology and Intelligence Services and Field Mobility and Modernization Systems to protect the safety and economic well-being of our nation.

So it is not a re-brand but a new brand. Analyze it and we'll get to the core of the company's revised position. (In fact, Soter is an ancient identifier of Zeus as protector; more recently, Sotera is a Greek girls' name, and both forms mean savior.) Consider that Sotera has just been purchased by a private equity group for about $315 million, and that the purchaser is an affiliate of Ares Management LLC, it looks as though the new owners are going to go through the entire Greek pantheon eventually.

Despite the generic logo and color scheme, there's good news: Sotera's stakeholders are so defined, so focused, that there's little chance the company will ever be a strongly branded player even in the defense industry – an arena whose players are rarely noted* for strong public brand awareness. Sotera will simply continue to be a good source of highly specialized military/intelligence services and a good money-maker.

Let us merely hope no one ever calls for a cyberwar scenario analysis and ends up with a hospital patient vital signs monitor...from Sotera Wireless in San Diego.

*For this post, put aside the “classic” defense contractor brands such as Boeing; as well as the politically notorious ones And clearly, Signalwriter would like to hear what the company's Loren Peduzzi and Ares's agency representative, Bill Mendel, say they're going to make of all this. Thanks in advance for the blog fodder, you guys.

Advertising with A Bang: Marketing Big Boys’ Toys Keeps the Sass Up.

On April 2nd 2003, during the second Gulf war, a hundred or so Iraqi armoured vehicles approached a far smaller American reconnaissance unit south of Baghdad…A B-52 bomber attacked the first 30 or so vehicles in the column with a single, historic pass. It dropped two new CBU-105 bombs…

While falling, the CBU-105 bombs propped open, each releasing ten submunitions which were slowed by parachutes. Each one of these used mini rockets to spin and eject outward four discs the size of ice-hockey pucks…

The 80 free-falling discs from the pair of bombs then scanned the ground with lasers and heat-detecting sensors to locate armoured vehicles. Those discs that identified a target exploded dozens of metres up. The blast propelled a tangerine-sized slug of copper down into the target, destroying it with the impact and the accompanying shrapnel…

The soldiers in the 70 vehicles farther back in the column surrendered immediately.*

There was a time, after the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, when I thought the “good old days” of defense industry advertising were done. Game over. And weapon system advertising was a terrific game, with its own language, its own sense of swagger.

Beyond the opportunity to show things that go bang (in print, in video, etc.), there was the feeling on my part, and on the part of everyone I worked with in the defense industry over a period of several decades, that we were creating goods and services for the defense of the nation…of giving our soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen the best matériel with which to win a fight – and win a war.

As demonstrated by this 2006 post, I have been lucky. Even though the Cold War has been over for years, I’ve been able to keep up my involvement in defense industry advertising. Reading about the CBU-105 cluster bomb recently sent me looking to see what’s new in defense industry marketing communication.

You should look too – Textron Defense Systems is cooking. It’s true there’s no substitute of a sexy product whatever the category. Its CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon and internal BLU-108 submunition are precisely the articles highlighted in The Economist article and they do work as described.

Textron has created a range of provocative marketing materials to convey not only the technical performance of its systems, but the emotion behind them. You can see video here, for example; and print advertising like those above here.

There is plenty of front-end attitude in headlines like:

Not just effective. Cost-effective. (Reversed out of photo of burning Iraqi tanks).

2 April 2003. The world’s first Smart Area Weapon proves itself in combat.

We’re the leader in force protection for one simple reason: We don’t believe in level playing fields.

The creative addresses its primary audience, but there’s more to it than sassy headlines. Responsible defense communications recognizes the benefits of effective weaponry in terms of protecting our combatants and minimizing casualties. In the Iraqi engagement, 30% of the tanks and their crews died. The other 70% surrendered – and lived.

In the case of Textron Defense Systems, advertising demonstrates product success. That means mission success. Can your advertising (and your product or service) make the same claim?

*From The Economist, January 30, 2010, p 88.