The Magic of Branding: Creating an Optimistic Identity for a Security Product
In the world of security, the dominant approach to branding is often based on fear and intimidation. But at Wiz, we're taking a different approach. We believe in the power of optimism and positivity, and we're building a brand that reflects those values.
For the first time, we're revealing some behind-the-scenes secrets of our process for creating a magical and optimistic brand identity and explaining why we believe this approach sets us apart as leaders in the security world.
Optimism: The Secret Ingredient for a Winning Brand Identity
Security professionals are inundated with scary and negative alerts all day long. These alerts can be overwhelming and take a toll on one's well-being. That's why our approach is to create a security product that provides a sense of hope and positivity, something to look forward to amidst the chaos of potential threats.
By infusing optimism into our brand identity, we're not ignoring the potential dangers of the security landscape. Rather, we're acknowledging them while also providing a product that inspires confidence. We want our customers to feel empowered, not overwhelmed, by their security solutions.
Creating a Magical Brand Identity
At Wiz, we believe that a brand identity should be more than just a logo and a color scheme. It should be a reflection of our values and our mission. That's why we've created a brand identity that's optimistic, magical, and unexpected.
We've chosen magic as a central theme for our brand identity. Magic represents the power to create something out of nothing, to turn the impossible into the possible. It's a perfect fit for a security product, which must protect against potential threats and vulnerabilities. By infusing magic into our brand identity, we're creating a sense of wonder and excitement that is rarely associated with security products.
We strive to create a product that’s not only effective, but also visually appealing and easy to use. That's why we've designed our user interface to be clean and simple, with straightforward navigation and clear calls to action. We want our customers to feel empowered and confident when using our product, not confused or intimidated.
Our vibrant blue brand color represents trust, loyalty, and wisdom, while our pink accent color represents energy, playfulness, and optimism. We've chosen imagery that's figurative and magical, with a sense of wonder and surprise. Our messaging is upbeat and positive, with a focus on empowering our customers to protect themselves against potential threats.
The Challenges of Rapid Growth and Branding
In a company like Wiz, which has exponentially grown, it's not possible to follow a standard branding process. Our rapid growth did not allow us to pause day-to-day tasks and dedicate our work solely to developing our brand from scratch. The difficulty was that even if we tried, the reality was faster, and the company grew faster than we ever imagined. And so the situation we found ourselves in highlighted our priorities, what kind of audience we're facing, and how we show up for our customers.
We had to adapt magical elements to the brand to keep up with timely needs rather than follow a more linear branding process. We were essentially building the plane while flying it. An example would be the addition of a magic treasure box to our branding elements, which resulted out of a need to find a magical representation for a container in the cloud. The magic wand was also added to create a sense of movement. Slowly but surely, it became a sign of our speed — a solution that turned out to be excellent and magical.
Not only did Wiz change rapidly, but the entire cloud security market was also evolving at an unprecedented pace. The success of our product quickly changed the landscape, and we understood we had to look inward, at the company, our employees, and our customers to create a brand that would represent them in the best way possible. We had to keep moving while also learning from our successes and mistakes.
A fun way to understand this is our custom socks, which don't look like traditional socks given at cloud security conferences. The idea behind their design was not to reflect a traditional cloud security brand, but to provide an exciting, innovative, magical, and special experience. These are values that we want to convey in all our branding content, from swag to the most technical content.
Despite the challenges of rapid growth and evolving market trends, our optimistic and magical brand identity has helped us stand out in the crowded security industry. We believe that by staying true to our values and continuing to innovate, we can continue to create a brand that reflects the magic of Wiz and inspires confidence in our customers.
The Magic of Wiz
We believe that the concept of magic ties perfectly into our brand identity. The name "Wiz" can be interpreted in different ways, including someone who's an expert, someone with great ability in a particular subject, or someone who can move or do something amazingly fast. These interpretations are all closely tied to the world of magic and make our brand name the perfect fit for our business.
But we don't want to come across as childish or gimmicky. Our approach is about providing a surprising, spectacular, and effective solution to security problems. Our use of illustrations brings a whimsical yet smart element to our brand. It represents our ability to provide a fun, approachable solution to a traditionally dull and technical problem. We believe that using illustrations helps us stand out in the industry and presents our brand in a more engaging and memorable way. The addition of the grain texture to our identity takes this a step further. It's a unique and subtle effect that gives our brand a more organic, less-techy look.
For us, magic means happening in an unusual, unexpected, and easy way. It also represents a special and exciting quality that makes something seem different from ordinary things. We strive to bring this magic to our product and brand communications, but in a way that still conveys trustworthiness and optimism.
By combining the power of magic with an optimistic brand identity, we at Wiz are redefining what it means to be a leader in the security industry. Our innovative approach to branding sets us apart and helps us connect with customers in a unique and meaningful way. As we continue to evolve and grow, we're committed to staying true to our values and creating a brand that reflects the optimism and magic that makes us Wiz.
Discover the magical world of our brand by following @wiz.style on Instagram
Wiz Research discovered CVE-2023-2640 and CVE-2023-32629, two easy-to-exploit privilege escalation vulnerabilities in the OverlayFS module in Ubuntu affecting 40% of Ubuntu cloud workloads.