Wrike name change request

As a recent adopter of your software, I am very excited about the benefits it can bring my company. However, I have repeatedly had to apologize for the incredibly ill-conceived name which conjures up some of the worst human atrocities. I understand brand name recognition is a hard-fought battle, but please consider changing the name from Wrike.

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Comments

Stephanie Westbrook

Hi Brad, we're excited to work with you as well! I apologize for any negative reactions you may have gotten from the name of our company. Such associations are not our intention. The word "Wrike" is meant to be a combination of "Work" and "Write" with a little made-up-word Silicon Valley flare (not unlike Skype or Drupal). While we have no immediate roadmap to changing our name, we take this feedback very seriously and frequently discuss ways to tell our brand story better to eliminate these associations.

I did go ahead and edit the title of your post because it's not an association we want to suggest to other users. Please let me know if you have any questions or additional feedback.

Josh Stanbro

Totally agree. We can't call it Wrike in our office, either. We are just going to refer to it as "Dashboard"

Can't believe this name didn't get nixed in the very first focus group.

Marty McCoy

We pronounce it RYE-KEY at our office. Or Ricky. Or Ricky Martín. Agree with Brad and Josh, this name is stupid. I would quit using Wrike in protest if the product weren't so awesome...

Kelly Alsip

I was wondering if anyone else was experiencing this! Thank you for posting this issue. I have been thinking of better names to call the software here at work and also trying to find ways to hide the name if possible. You can use the option to add your own company logo in place of the Wrike logo that you see in the main workspace. Also, if you have request forms, you can add your own company logo to the email receipt notification as well.

If anyone else has any other solutions for this, please submit a comment here!

Thanks!

Glen Turpin

Same issue here. We're trying out some alternate names for it internally and we're going to change the logo as soon as we settle on one that we like.

I understand how hard it is to brand products and come up with distinctive, protectable, available names. (Been there, done that before this product was a twinkle in the founder's eye.)

The actual product name is terrible and is potentially a barrier to more widespread adoption in our organization.

Beth Case

A name change with a message to your users explaining that it has come to light that the name "Wrike" appears to make many customers uncomfortable, along with an apology, would be only good for your company. Not realizing the negative association only comes across as insensitive and ignorant.

Steve Cotterill

Our IT department is trying to preemptively tell everyone that the name is pronounced "rye-key" but in my observations, people are either not noticing this or can't seem to commit to this pronunciation, which turns every conversation about this product into a debate about sensitivity. Your corporate website includes derivations of the name which make it impossible to reconcile these pronunciations. I can't read "Out Wrikers Network" and say "rye-key-ers" in my head. You NEED to change this name.

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hi @Steve Cotterill, welcome to the Community!

Thank you for sharing your feedback about our name! Our team is aware of it, and if we have any updates in relation to this in the future, we'll make sure to let you know.

Please let me know if I can help you with anything else!

Glen Turpin

@Elizaveta Bogdanova Does the team understand that this is a serious issue that has gotten more serious over time?

Elizaveta Bogdanova

@Glen Turpin Currently, the team is aware of the feedback that we're getting here on this thread.

Greg Monahan

If not a name change, then the ability to replace the Wrike name/logo with something customizable.

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hi @Greg Monahan, welcome to the Community! 🤗

On Business and Enterprise accounts, it's possible to add your company logo to your workspace - please check out this article and let me know if that helps 🙌

Greg Monahan

We've already updated with our company logo - both old and new interfaces - was thinking about some of the other places where you see the company logo during loading wait screens and in the Wrike Assistant (Resource, Guide, Ask the Expert, ...)

Cansu Yetisgin

Hello @Greg Monahan, thank you for taking the time to share your ideas here. I've passed on your feedback to our Product team 👍🏼

Maeve Murray

As new adopters of your software, we're starting to have similar conversations at our organization to those shared by the thoughtful commenters on this thread. Wanted to take a moment to chime in as the last post here was back in May. We agree that this is an important issue - are there any updates from the Product team at this time?

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hi @Maeve Murray, welcome to the Community! 👋

Thank you for sharing your feedback, we pass it to the Product team regularly. There are no plans to change the name currently, but if we get an update in the future, we'll make sure to let you know.

If you'd like to know what this Community has to offer, please check out our New to Community forum.

Tim Boot

Echoing what has been said here, the name is terrible. I onboarded a new employee this week with a particularly sensitive background around "Reich" it was a very uncomfortable situation. We will not be referring to this product by name in our company, which as a marketer myself, is a pretty big fail for you. My company is new to this software and we look forward to using it but change the name or debrand the UX! In this positive era of increased DE&I, be more sensitive.

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Thank you again for your feedback @Tim Boot! I've replied to you on this here.

Michael Betsanes

Your company doesn't seem very sensitive to names.
I'm going through this with support right now. I work at a top tier institution that is very sensitive about its community and inclusiveness.
Beyond what everyone has mentioned here, which is definitely contentious on campus, there's another problem.

We have Okta IDP SSO enabled for security on enterprise, but users cannot change their display name. There is no ADMIN option to allow users to change their display name. I understand the security argument, but I would allow it. Especially since we have another security group in front of the Okta hand-off where enrollment is 100% transparent for administration - no one slips through the multiple verifications to nefariously masquerade as someone else.

Right now, you enforce receiving IDP firstname-lastname info.
We don't enforce it, and I checked with our IDP team, and we DO make the preferred names available via the DisplayName attribute and can express that through Okta. You should support this properly. DisplayName per the standards is how the user's name should be shown in the application, however it is not, and they cannot change it.

We have a diverse staff who are in various situations and would prefer to be seen as, and to some people are ONLY known as, their preferred names.
This really needs to change.

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hi @Michael Betsanes, welcome to the forums and thanks for such detailed feedback!

I can see that this was resolved by our SSO experts now 👍 Please let me know if you need help with anything else!

Ben Ploughman

How about Projage

Lee Williams

I know people are really afraid to say Wrike correctly but it’s pronounced RIKE, not RIKIE. The Reich that people are afraid to say is a) a German word and b) is spelled completely different. I want to free you all of this fear that someone will misunderstand a “Wrike” as an email vs the rise of the German Empire. Be adults.

Rosemary Hancock

I vote to change the name too. If the name doesn't change, then does that mean the company is okay being misunderstood to having the same values as the Reich?

Garland Draper

WRIKE REICH?! I have to agree. When I first encountered this platform at my new job, I was stunned. In fact, I thought the team was pranking me. How on earth did someone so smart pick such an awful name. Didn't ANYONE push back on this? Surely SOMEONE had to point out the obvious, Dr. Stangelove aside…

Chris DeFelice

Reich is just a German word that means realm. Wrike isn't even spelled the same way. We still use the term axis in mathematics. WWII ended over 80 years ago. It is time to move on…