Computer Associates (CA) Website

The Setup

CA Technologies sold its internet security division to a private equity firm. The new company needed a name, a brand and a reason for people to pay attention, all at once. Security software usually talks to IT departments in technical language. We needed the business owner and the person at home to get it right away.

What I Led

I led the team that rebranded the new company and built its launch. We went with a football metaphor: the server room is the playing field, and your security is your defense. To carry it we brought in two voices people already trusted. Michael Strahan of the New York Giants anchored the campaign, and his defense was the best in the NFL the year we had him. John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted showed that online crime is still crime. My team took the marketing videos from concept through full production. We also designed the website and the visual language around them: dark server rooms, chalk playbook lines, one red signal for every action, and the product lineup color-coded like jerseys.

What We Delivered

• A new brand identity for the spun-off company
• A campaign website built around a starting lineup of products, so customers could compare protection levels at a glance
• A film room of spokesman videos: Strahan’s pep talk, his “geek lessons” with IT, and Walsh’s crime watch series
• Supporting product pages and a learning center

The campaign did well enough that its name became the company’s name: Total Defense.