First off, let me say this is not going to be some super in depth analysis that looks into financial statements, revenues shifts, profitability or details like that. I’m merely going to make some basic observations and speak to how I as an Adobe/Omniture customer feel. First, some background.
A Little Background Our company as been an Omniture client since summer 2007. We’ve been a heavy Adobe customer since 2005 (meaning we have 20 creatives now), and before that we were a heavy Macromedia customer. We use their ColdFusion Enterprise servers…several of them since our site handles 1,000,000+ uniques a month. We use lots of Photoshop, some Illustrator, some Dreamweaver, quite a bit of After Effects, some Flex and probably some things I don’t know about.
Since adopting Omniture as our analytics platform in 2007, we’ve been gung ho pushing analytics into everthing we do. We opted for the full time analyst right out of the gate. After 3 years of sculpting, he’s a rock star. We started with Omniture’s Site Catalyst and Search Center. We’re now using Omniture’s…I mean Adobe’s Test and Target powered by Omniture as well as Omniture’s…I mean Adobe’s Discover 2 powered by Omniture. We love the tools and we’ve done some great things with them. The main reason for us moving to their platform was in preparation for the launch of our new website…which I might add went off quite successfully in November 2009…thanks to Omniture’s…now Adobe’s Tools powered by Omniture.
Here’s Where I’m Weirded Out I may have been in a hole or something since I stay so busy, but this week I started noticing that my beloved Omniture Green is well…gone. Where did it go? I can’t find it anywhere. It’s like we’re entering fall and all the leaves are falling off the trees! It’s disappeared from my regular Omniture (now Adobe) emails. It’s disappeared from Omniture.com. It’s disappearing from the SiteCatalyst tools!
Now honestly one might think. Well, duh. They were just acquired by Adobe. Of course the branding will change. Just being candid, my day is so busy I hadn’t really thought about it much. Now that it’s taking place before me, I’m having some weird attachment emotions. What is this I’m feeling? Well, actually there’s a good answer. Several incredible marketers have written about it. You might know some of them. Seth Godin, Martin Lindstrom, Patrick Hanlon just to name a few. So it’s kind of funny to hear these guys speak for years and read their books then see what they teach actually affect your emotions about a brand you deal with all the time.
Time for a Contrast The Adobe/Omniture merger went through in late 2009, about 10 months ago. Another big merger happened recently. Amazon and Zappos. Let’s look at where they are after 1 year…roughly the same time frame.
Zappos before Amazon Merger
Zappos After Amazon Merger
Omniture Before Adobe Merger
Omniture After Adobe Merger
My only point is I’m basically an Omniture freak and why not. Omniture’s helped move our company forward, move our mission forward. Since 2007 when we moved to Omniture from Google Analytics, our web staff has grown from 35 to 60. Omniture helped us do that. Our revs grew…a lot. We just launched a new website that accounts for 75-80% of our company’s business all based on what Omniture helped us do. I’m a bit touchy when you go messing with one of my favorite brands, it’s colors and it’s employees.
Maybe it’s sophisticated rebranding, but it seems like a miscue when you already have the most successful web analytics brand on the market. Brands are emotional as Martin Lindstrom showed through Buyology, Patrick Hanlon covers in Primal Branding and Seth can’t stop talking about it. You took away my green…you just gutted part of my emotional attachment to the Omniture Brand. Not a good way to finish out the first year. I know it sounds a little weird, but it’s where I’m at.
Adobe, I hope you get this right. 😉