One things for sure. None of us have careers in product branding on the horizon. All of these are awful 
 
And yes I've read them all.....
 
 
 
 

Sonar was the new name, it was Cakewalk before, so it's been changed before for marketing reasons.
 
I don't mind the clean slate, I think it makes some sense. If you google Sonar, there is plenty of dirt, some of it out of date dirt. Videos and instructions are out of date.
 
 

kellerpj
Actually, paying for "Addwords" is the way to get it at the top of Google's search list.

kellerpj
Actually, paying for "Addwords" is the way to get it at the top of Google's search list.

Why pay the extortionate fee for AdWords (upwards of $5-$10 minimum per click just for one visitor to the site) when you could simply have a unique name that be at the top of organic results when people Google it? 
 
I presume you're talking about having the new DAW's website come to the top of results when people Google the new name. 
 
Or are you talking about it being at the top of results when people Google "DAW"? Well if you Google "DAW" right now, no particular DAW is anywhere near the top of the results. In fact no DAW even makes the first five pages of results - not even Pro Tools. What you do have on the first page (the only page that matters) is mostly articles about DAW's. So for whatever reason, no DAW manufacturer has ever managed to achieve SEO for that search term. 
 
In fact it seems the major DAW manufacturers have failed to achieve any kind of good SEO for any search term except the actual names of their DAW's. Even Googling "Digital Audio Workstation" failed to return Pro Tools as a result - the only 2 DAW's for that search term (which I can't imagine gets many searches) are Tracktion and Ardour. 
 
The only way DAW manufacturers are getting to the top of Google is through Google's brand carousels. These generally appear when you search for "best" something, or add a qualifier like "software." So if you search for "Best DAW" or "DAW software," Google will display a carousel of the major brands at the top. Surprisingly enough, Sonar actually does OK here, appearing 5th in line in the carousel for "DAW software" and 3rd in line for "best DAW". 
 
I haven't seen any AdWord ads for any DAW manufacturers, which suggests to me that the avenue has already been explored by DAW marketers and abandoned as ineffective. AdWords aren't really that effective in many cases - it really depends on the industry. I know I've spent small fortunes on them for my business without much success. The main problem is that people tend to avoid search engine ads like the plague. I know I do - if I search for something and some ads appear at the top of the results, I just ignore them and go straight to the organic results. 
 

Bandlab Compose(r)
Bandlab Design(er)
Bandlab (Audio) Suite

sharke
Or are you talking about it being at the top of results when people Google "DAW"? Well if you Google "DAW" right now, no particular DAW is anywhere near the top of the results. In fact no DAW even makes the first five pages of results - not even Pro Tools. What you do have on the first page (the only page that matters) is mostly articles about DAW's. So for whatever reason, no DAW manufacturer has ever managed to achieve SEO for that search term. 
 

Given that most folks today turn to Google (or other search engines) when they are first looking into a new topic, it appears that all of the DAW companies have dropped the ball in this area. I started thinking about how someone who is new to this would start their search. They probably have no idea what a "DAW" is, but they know what they want to do. So I did a search for "audio recording" - and the first result is "Online Voice Recorder" (hardley what you would call a DAW by rather a simple web based voice recorder) followed by "Audacity", followed by how-to articles. If you put in "record music on my computer" you also get a ton of "how to" articles, but not a single DAW on the first few pages (except for Audacity). Other generic recording searches reveal similar results.
 
Just this cursory look at this area appears to show that there is a huge potential marketing area that has been completely overlooked by any of the DAW companies. Seeing as Audacity is open source and not really backed by commercial marketing resources, it is interesting this is the one DAW that shows up most often (although even it is not typically that high on the results list). One would think that SEO of your product would be a prime interest to these companies.
 
In the past, there had been a ton of discussion about how Cakewalk didn't market SONAR very well. Based on these generic audio recording searches, it would appear no one is doing a very good job.

Nigel

daryl1968
Nigel

Thought you'd go for
Eric
 
or
 
Acacia
 

Kamikaze

daryl1968
Nigel

Thought you'd go for
Eric
 
or
 
Acacia
 

:)
 
or Brian - when it comes time....welease Bwian!

sharke
One things for sure. None of us have careers in product branding on the horizon. All of these are awful 
 
And yes I've read them all.....

...and thanks for reading them all for me.  (Really!  I mean that!)
 
Another thing I missed by not reading the whole thread...
 
Why would SONAR need to be renamed at all?
 
There was a bit of a headslap back when it went from Cakewalk to SONAR, but I've gotten over it.  Now, "SONAR" has a lot of years of traction and mindshare with a passionate user base.  Why on earth would you want to squander all that valuable existing branding by doing some stupid "New Coke" thing?
 
Really?!

Studioguy1
Changing the name of Sonar would be like Chevy buying Ford and calling them Klutzmobiles.  It is totally nuts.  BandLab is and should always be the parent name, but the product names would maintain a loyal user base with appropriate version names etc as things move forward.  By the way, some of the names thrown out here illustrate why none of those people are running software companies.  geesh.

...and this would be further evidence that I didn't read the whole thread.  You had already said what I said.
 
That being said...I still like SPlat.
 
(Thanks Craig!)