MYOB has been a victim of its own success - GM of marketing

Lindsay Bennett
By Lindsay Bennett | 19 October 2016
 
MYOB rebrands on 25th birthday by launching its logo into the stratosphere

MYOB is celebrating its 25th year in the market, kicking off a major campaign that aims to reposition itself as a key player in the technology space and re-educate the market on its cloud-based offerings.

The new brand strategy introduces a fresh tagline, ‘Simplify Success’, moving away from its previous ‘Love Your Work’ positioning. It’s a way to ‘move the needle’ for software business MYOB and reflect its transition into a digital technology company.

MYOB group general manager of marketing Natalie Feehan tells AdNews one of the brands biggest challenges has been its own heritage, which in some ways has worked against MYOB.

"Our greatest strength and weakness is our own brand heritage. It works for and against us because people have a historic view of what MYOB is all about. People see us as an accounting software brand instead of a technology business,” she says.

Feehan admits that MYOB has been a victim of its own success, but hopes to change brand perception with several experiential initiatives that will launch later this year.

“MYOB has transformed rapidly over the last five years but about 18 months ago I noticed that people weren’t listening to our marketing message and our online and cloud based product offering wasn’t resonating with the market. We realised we had to make bigger and broader changes to be noticed and revaluated by our customers,” she says.

“Fundamentally we are a technology company but the market perception is lagging behind – our evolution happened five years ago, so it’s time to catch-up.”

In the first phase of MYOB’s transformation, it released a social video that physically launched the brand into space. The concept was to visualise the idea of ‘beyond the cloud’. 

The video shows staff floating the old MYOB logo into the stratosphere, to reveal the new brand logo and tagline ‘Simplify Success’. The refresh also includes a video series with MTV personality Kate Peck.

"Any rebrand takes a period of time – it’s not a one hit wonder, but it’s the start of a journey and a series of hits. We want to communicate to our partners there is a whole new world of cloud based marketing. We know we can’t do that through one advertising campaign,” Feehan says.

While previously MYOB has invested heavily in above the line advertising, it’s shifting its focus to experiential initiatives.

“Above the line continues to work for us but MYOB already has high brand awareness, so we wanted to look at doing things fundamentally differently through experiences. There’s still a role for TV, but it’s not right now.”

MYOB plans to market its brand refresh through several event sponsorships, taking a more “grass roots approach” to demonstrate the company’s offerings. It has partnered with Wade Institute, the SheStarts program and several technology forums.

Take a look at MYOB's previous campaign:

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