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Animal Brands and Metaphors in the Storage Market

by Zsolt Kerekes editor

Animal marketing metaphors are popular in service industries, but you'd be surprised how many companies have used animals in their marketing of data storage products and services too.

The storage market was worth over $200 billion in 2008, and as it gets bigger - more companies will turn to animal brands to help differentiate their otherwise bland products and lend them artificial (or deserving) characters and virtues.

The idea behind this type of marketing is to suggest positive connotations so it's unlikely that anyone will choose to associate their products with gremlins. But you may be surprised by the population of the storage ark.

This reference articles lists all known companies who have furry marketing brands, and also includes some which are slimy, scaly and scary too.

see also:- Animal brands in the SSD market
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Animal Type Company Notes

A Adder Quantum I cheated here by assuming that an adder is biologically similar to a viper. Viper is a brand of tape drive, which started under Certance, later acquired by Quantum.
Ant Click & Protect

This company was in the Storage Security market.
Click and Protect

B Barracuda Seagate desktop PC disk family
SATABeast Nexsan Technologies RAID systems
Bear BEAR Data Systems Storage Services
Bee Wikibon A busy bee is part of the logo of this storage publication.
Blackbird MicroNet Technology SR-4 Blackbird SATA RAID arrays
Boa EZQuest CD-RW & DVD-RW drives
Bobcat ONStor NAS Gateway
Buffalo Buffalo Technology various
Bull NetApp's founder, Dave Hitz has written an autobiography called - How To Castrate a Bull.

C Camel Storage Depot

The camel is in the logo of this UK storage VAR
Storage Depot
Cat BlueArc used an image featuring a lion and domestic cats in a print ad campaign in Q306 - with the theme:- "Tired of herding cats? - Wasn't NAS supposed to simplify storage?" BlueArc animals graphic - click to see full ad
Cheetah Seagate enterprise server disk family
Cheetah / Rhino hybrid Vanguard Rugged Storage Solid State Disks
Cheetah Foremay 2.5" SSD
Cobra EZQuest hard disk drives
Cow Gateway The black and white cow pattern is used in the company's logo.
Cuckoo Cucku There's a bird in the logo of this publisher of online backup software.

D Dog DinoStor I didn't see any dinosaur or canine images on this company's site in the few short years that it was active in the tape backup market. But I'm infering a reliable dog positioning from the name.
Dog Identity Finder Another graphic of man's best firend is used in the logo of this storage security company.
Dog Memtech Bulldog is an entry level SSD family.
Dog DataSafe Services The company's logo includes a picture of a dog.
Dolphin Dolphin The company makes PCIe SSDs.
Dragon SOYO USB drives
Dragon Cornice Miniature hard disk drives.
Dragon NTI "Dragon Burn" CD-RW & DVD-RW software.
Dragon see also:- the editor's online story:- Princess Laura and the Unsuitable Dragon Suitors

E Elephant Memtech

Used as a graphic in the company's logo.
Memtech logo circa 2005. click for 2005 profile.
Elephant Advanced Media Elephant design of USB flash drive.
Elephant MemoryTen Elephant in their logo.

F Falcon FalconStor Software Used in the company's name.
Falcon Falcon Systems Was a RAID systems company acquired by Artecon in 1997, which itself was merged with Box Hill in 1999 to become Dot Hill.
Flea Apple iPod Flea portable disk / music player
Fly StoneFly Networks Its logo does look a bit like a buzzing fly (strange choice)
FireFly ASACA VTL

G Goblins STORAGEsearch Used as metaphor for Storage Security.

H Hedgehogs Prickly Spine Software Used in the company's logo.
Hornet Memtech Is an SSD family.
Horse Memtech Mustang is a SSD family.
Horse Tanisys Technology Dark Horse is the brand name of some memory testers made by this company.
Hummingbird A-DATA new logo started January 2010.
Hydra NEC NEC's HYDRAstor evolves with new technologies - without forcing the user to start a new grid system. When Heracles fought the Hydra it could grow new heads.

I Iguana Infinite Data Storage CD burner for IBM notebooks.

IEI historic banner
I'm not sure what kind of animal is depicted in the above banner ad, which we ran in 2002 to 2003 from IEI Technology.

J Jaguar TigerDirect Jaguar is a brand of USB hard drive.

K Kangaroo Kanguru Solutions The company no longer uses an animal image in their logo (in 2006) - but they did have kangaroo pictures on their site in 1996.

L Lion BlueArc used an image featuring a lion and domestic cats in a print ad campaign in Q306 - with the theme:- "Tired of herding cats? - Wasn't NAS supposed to simplify storage?" BlueArc animals graphic - click to see full ad

M Mammoth Exabyte Mammoth was a brand of tape drive circa 2000
Mice STORAGEsearch.com The Byte clan has been expanding ever since Megabyte made his first public appearance on the web in 1998. The Bytes trace their roots back to their Bit ancestor in the 11th century AD.
Monkey Advanced Media Monkey design of USB flash drive.
Monkey Ruptured Monkey Used in the name and logo of this storage publication (domain registered in 2000).
Moose Northern There are some kind of antlers featured in the company's logo.

N Newt various Several companies make Newt (Network For Emerging Wireless Technologies) USB adapaters.

O ?

P Panda Active Media Products USB drive in Panda toy.
Panther Memtech SATA solid state disk.
Penguin Penguin Computing A penguin is used as the logo for the Linux market and for this company who make the IceBreaker range of SSD accelerated HPC storage.
Penguin Active Media Products Penguin toy with USB storage.
Phoenix Phoenix International Military Storage
Phoenix SoleraTec Network Attached Storage
Platypus Platypus Technology (no longer with us) was a one time maker of SSDs Platypus
Python Quantum tape drive

Q ?

R Raptor Western Digital Hard disk drives
Raven Storage Engine storage systems
Rhino Vanguard Rugged Storage Solid State Disks
Rhino StorCase Technology uses the rhino metaphor to indicate how tough and rugged their enclosures are. Storage Boxes
StorCase Technology - Rhino brand
RoadRunner Topio Disaster Recovery
Rodent Gear6 Some kind of rodent or rat appeared on the home page of this company in October 2006.

S SaberTooth Active Media Products Brand name for netbook SSD card.
Seal SEAL Brand name for USB flash drives / MP3 players
Selkie Tugboat Enterprises Although the Selkie is a mythical creature it's also the brand name for Tugboat's data recovery software product.
Shark IBM RAID systems
SharkTank an editorial column in Computerworld .com
Sidewinder Quantum tape drive
Squirrel Selectronix GBICs, SFPs and XFPs, Fibre channel cables
Cyril the Squirrel - historic Selectronix  banner  May 2000
Selectronix advertised here on on STORAGEsearch.com from 2000 to 2006. In April 2000, inspired by the success of our Megabyte the mouse brand, they tried out the banner ad above featuring Cyril the Squirrel. It was designed by the same graphics designer David Mellor at Dynamite Design - who draws Megabyte.

I came across David's work in 1997 when he was doing designs for my wife's company Downes Strategic Marketing. At that time Dynamite were located just a mile down the road from our farm and were actually working in an office they rented from Selectronix. David had been designing Megabyte graphics for us since the summer of 1998 so when Selectronix started to look for web sites to advertise on in 2000 David suggested us.

The Squirrel concept didn't last long. Selectronix soon after went back to using conventional product image based banner ads. Some of their conventional ads (also designed by David) were stunning designs too, in their own way.

T Tarsier BiTMICRO Networks Used to brighten up the company's web pages.
Tiger TigerDirect Used in the company's name.
Tiger Tiger Technology Used in the company's name.
Tiger aXstor

Picture of 2 tigers on the home page of this UK storage distributor (Dec 2006).
aXstor tigers
Tiger Rave Computer Association Tiger RAID SATA 3.0 Disk Array

U Unicorn Unicorn Electronics Reseller of storage and IT products.

V Viper Quantum A brand of tape drive, which started under Certance, later acquired by Quantum.

W Wolf StorageTek TimberWolf was a family of tape libraries.
Wolverine Memtech brand of solid state disks
Worm Write Once Read Many times storage. From Megabyte's Storage Dictionary
Worm SilkWorm was a brand of Fibre Channel fabric switch marketed by Brocade.

X ?

Y Yak YAK Networks online backup and storage
Yak YAK Biotech Solutions USB storage wristband.

Z Zebra Zebra A network file system that stripes data across multiple servers.
Zebra Addonics Zebra range of Disk Duplicators.
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