Are you drowning in a sea of cyber sameness?

In summary

  • The cybersecurity market has grown 300% from 2018 to 2021. 
  • Security and IT leaders are overwhelmed by the number of vendors on the market – not helped by the fact that so many look and sound identical
  • You need to find ways to stand out and differentiate your cybersecurity brand
  • We talk about positioning, the human elements of brand, the importance of consistent branding, distinctive design, and why FUD is dated

Article by founder and director of Shaped By Nick Farrar.

Five ways to set your cybersecurity brand apart

2020 was a good year for cybersecurity start-ups, with a record $8.9bn invested globally. It looked like the grass in the fields of growth couldn’t be greener…until 2021, when that figure shot up again to a staggering $21bn, leading to over a 300% increase in cybersecurity firms on the market since 2018.

No wonder over two-thirds of security and IT leaders said they felt overwhelmed by the sheer amount of vendors. I feel for them because the problem isn’t just the number of companies.

So many cybersecurity brands sound, look and feel virtually identical. 

Every vertical has its language, visual traits, and familiar tropes. Occasionally these are important to adhere to. Customers expect it from brands.

But in my opinion, cybersecurity branding has gone too far this way. There are too many categories within it where, if you put each brand side-by-side, you struggle to distinguish one from another.

In any market, that’s a problem. Distinctiveness builds recognition. But it’s an especially big problem in a market as densely crowded as cybersecurity.

The good news? There are ample opportunities for cybersecurity companies to set themselves apart from competitors. Here are five important places to start…

Positioning and messaging

The trap that cybersecurity brands fall into here is one that many B2B tech brands struggle with.

They lead with something like: “We’ve built this great product. Let me tell you what it does. Let me tell you how it works. Let me tell you about all the great companies that use it. And let me do all that using complicated and technical jargon.”

There is a place for this information somewhere within your messaging framework. (Aside from the jargon part.) But the mistake that I often see is cybersecurity firms leading with it front and centre.

The opportunity to stand out here comes by flipping this approach around, and reverse-engineering this core messaging from your audience’s “why”:

  • Why would my audience buy and use this?
  • Why would it make their life easier and better?
  • Why would they choose it over another product?
  • Why does solving this problem really matter to them?

 

It’s a real opportunity for two reasons. Firstly, the chances are that if your competitors are doing this, they’re doing it rather half-heartedly. They may address the first point above by talking about “eliminating gaps”, “protecting endpoints” or “stopping breaches”. But they rarely take it that stage further by answering the other three.

It’s a real opportunity for two reasons. Firstly, the chances are that if your competitors are doing this, it’s rather half-heartedly. They may address the first point above by talking about “eliminating gaps”, “protecting endpoints” or “stopping breaches”. But they rarely take it that stage further by answering the other three.

Using human stories to cut through

Cybersecurity isn’t about technology – it’s about people. And every vendor or organisation within it has a unique and very human story to tell about the people they help. These stories are often highly inspiring ones of innovation, heroics, and positive impact on the world. But too often they are shouted down by endless foghorns blaring technical buzzwords and product features.

So where’s the best place to start? Your customers. Talking to them, relating to them and being obsessive about the problems you’re helping them to tackle – and the positive impact on them and the people around them.

Then it’s about having the conviction to build your core positioning and messaging around these stories.

Keep your cybersecurity branding consistent

This is a big one. There are so many audience touchpoints, and it’s essential to maintain consistency across all of them. People are very good at tuning out things, and you’ve only got a split second to draw them in or make them pause. While it’s so important to land a message, equally they need to know who it’s from. Consistent visual language is the most effective way to express your brand through design. Colour palettes, image styles, fonts, iconography, logos, and animation.

When you pull all this together in a deliberate way, it allows your audience to start identifying and associating each piece of your company with you. It strengthens your cybersecurity brand identity and gives you consistency.

In cybersecurity, visual language is where a lot of firms end up falling down a giant homogenous hole. These dark webs of data, server rooms, padlocks and mysterious code seem to be what we’ve decided cybersecurity must look like if we’re to attempt to visualise it:

Cybersecurity is largely invisible. Its products may have interfaces, but they aren’t tangible, physical objects like a car or a pair of sneakers. So visualising it can be challenging – but there’s no need to conform to the bleak and fear-inducing concepts above.

I truly feel that cybersecurity deserves a visual language that represents the hope, trust and optimism that binds the people who work within it.

Great design gives you distinction

Create distinction through design. A lot of cybersecurity brands pick blue as their primary colour. At the top end of the market, it’s a little more diverse. Zscaler is blue, Crowdstrike is red, Palo Alto Networks is dark orange, and Cloudflare is light orange. But further down, it’s largely a sea of blue.

This provides plenty of space to differentiate. Here are a few that are already doing it. Clockwise from the top left: Cybereason, Palo Alto Networks, Splunk and Netskope.

Cybereason’s use of yellow and brand characters is thoroughly un-cyber-like, which is why it immediately stands out. As for the others, my view is that all three are indeed seeking to present a more optimistic view of cybersecurity. The use of bold, bright colours like yellow, orange and even sky blue as opposed to dark blue. And in Palo Alto Networks’ case, the refreshingly alternative take on visualising the connective tissue of the cyber world.

Visual storytelling can help you stand out from the crowd. We worked with Rubrik to create a thought leadership platform for cybersecurity buyers called Rubrik Zero Labs. We designed the microsite creating a user experience that helped the story unfold with animation and motion to help people absorb the information and bring a punch to key points.

If you as a marketer or creative can bring more hope and optimism alive in your brand’s visual language, then you have a real chance of setting yourselves apart in a positive, human and authentic way.

FUD – Fear, uncertainty, and doubt is dated

The A huge portion of the cybersecurity industry leans into a fear-based tone to drive action, but it’s important not to overdo it. Creative Director at Rubrik, Ben Long emphasised the need to strike a balance, and convey assurance and support to give customers confidence in their solutions. “You don’t have to go too far connecting the dots. You’re dealing with people and individuals.

Companies focus on the negative outcomes of not using their products, playing on the fear, uncertainty, and doubt trying to spook people into entering the market or switching vendors.

But this fear-based approach is outdated, and senior CISOs are unlikely to listen to it. Lindsey Jenkins, Director of Enterprise Security Group Marketing, Akamai said in our panel, “you don’t need to educate CISOs on the risks they are facing. The fear narrative is old, and senior CISOs won’t listen to that.”

There is an alternative to all this. You could adopt a more positive approach using language that resonates with customers and focuses on positive outcomes. Being frank with customers about the risks they face is important, raising the alarm without being alarmist is entirely possible.

The language used here is a breath of fresh air. Now I had to search hard for these. So that tells you just how scarce these kinds of narratives are.

It’s time for the cybersecurity industry to shift towards a more positive and optimistic tone. By adopting a more positive approach, businesses can stand out against competitors while also helping to build a better industry. People naturally lean towards positivity, and cybersecurity solutions ultimately lead to positive outcomes for real people.

It’s long overdue.

Speak to us and find out how we can make your cybersecurity brand stand out here.

Get more cybersecurity marketing insight

Interested in learning more about standing out in a crowded cybersecurity market? Visit our cybersecurity content hub.

Our Work

Matt Price
Senior Director, Creative
TravelPerk

Matt Price is a creative leader with a career that has traversed award-winning agencies, high-performance brands, and innovative start-ups.

Fueled by a deep passion for cultivating dynamic creative teams and crafting distinctive brand experiences, Matt has earned a reputation for shaping and evolving brands across diverse industries. He currently leads creativity at TravelPerk.

Melissa Rosenthal
Chief Creative Officer
ClickUp

Melissa is an award-winning marketing executive and the Chief Creative Officer at ClickUp, focused on making the world more productive through best-in-class SaaS marketing.

Previously Melissa was the CRO/Executive Vice President at Cheddar, a live video media company at the intersection of business news and culture. For her brand work, she was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30, Business Insider’s 30 Most Creative People Under 30 and as one of Digiday’s “Changemakers.”

Prior to Cheddar, she led BuzzFeed’s Global Creative Team. Joining the staff in 2010, Rosenthal was a key contributor to the creation and early success of BuzzFeed’s branded content native advertising model.

Melissa Rosenthal
Chief Creative Officer
ClickUp

Melissa is an award-winning marketing executive and the Chief Creative Officer at ClickUp, focused on making the world more productive through best-in-class SaaS marketing.

Previously Melissa was the CRO/Executive Vice President at Cheddar, a live video media company at the intersection of business news and culture. For her brand work, she was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30, Business Insider’s 30 Most Creative People Under 30 and as one of Digiday’s “Changemakers.”

Prior to Cheddar, she led BuzzFeed’s Global Creative Team. Joining the staff in 2010, Rosenthal was a key contributor to the creation and early success of BuzzFeed’s branded content native advertising model.

Ari Yablok
Head of Brand 
Island

Ari Yablok is the Head of Brand at Island, the Enterprise Browser. Before joining Island as its first marketing hire, Ari was the Head of Brand Messaging at Atreo, a B2B tech branding and marketing agency, where he crafted the strategic narratives, end-to-end messaging, corporate and investor decks, and brand identities for 50+ leading tech companies including Taboola, Similarweb, Gloat, JFrog, and Panaya. Originally from New Jersey, Ari lives in a suburb of Tel Aviv, Israel with his wife and six children.

Ling Koay
Chief Brand Officer
Oneflow

Ling is a fearless B2B marketer and a purposeful leader with almost two decades of experience driven by growing businesses through creativity, art, and science. Recently, she was named “CMO to Watch in 2022” by CMO Alliance. She has also led the Oneflow brand to be one of the “B2B Brands to Watch in 2022” alongside brands like Slack, Gong, and Tiktok Business.

Ling’s mission is to inspire humans to find and embrace their superpowers so that we can transform mediocrity into magic in our lives. Marketing to her is using ideas to change minds. Move the needle. Make sales easier. Being a mom of two kids under 6, marketing is essential to win day-to-day negotiations. Recently she gave up her CMO title to focus on the brand. Call her crazy, but marketing is the puzzle she needs to solve every day to make her life complete.

Buck Choate
VP Brand
Lacework

Buck Choate is a distinguished brand and marketing leader that thrives at the intersection of strategy, stories, and ideas. As VP of Brand at Lacework, he spearheads brand management, activations, social and editorial content, and brand design. Buck has spent his 15+ year career working with iconic global brands like Microsoft, Intel, Fender, Walmart, Ubisoft, PepsiCo, and 7-Eleven.

Damien Correll
Creative Director
Figma

Based in NYC, Damien Correll is the Creative Director at Figma where he leads their Brand Studio. Over the past 20 years, he’s worked on both the brand and product sides (and some of the places in-between), Whether it’s running his own practice or working in-house at one of the largest companies in the world, he’s in the pursuit of great design by making the expected surprising, the strange familiar, and the accessible abundant.

Ben Long
Creative Director
Rubrik

Make fun stuff for people to enjoy. That’s why we all got into this in the first place. And if you can do that while delivering strategic and purposeful creative that meets brand goals? Now you’re on to something.

That’s what Ben Long has been aiming at for the last six years at Rubrik, leading the global brand team as Creative Director. Ben loves nothing more than when a team comes together to pull off something that’s a little risky and a lot unexpected.

Ben lives in the Bay Area with his wife, two kids, and a giant dog that’s way too big for his house

Steve Stone
Head of Zero Labs
Rubrik

Steve has over fifteen year’s experience in threat intelligence and event response with positions in the US military, intelligence community, and private sector. Steve held a number of roles to include threat intelligence, service delivery, and various leadership positions at Mandiant, FireEye, and IBM in the private sector. He is a frequent contributor and presenter in a variety of industry forums/conferences.

Wei Kee
Client Services Director
Shaped By

As Client Services Director at Shaped By, Wei Kee leads the team to deliver on the promises they make, working closely with clients to kick personal, team, and business goals.

A true advocate of good design and innovative creative solutions, she works hard to ensure a strong, unified dynamic between internal/external creative, and wider teams.

Wei subscribes to an empathetic and human-centric approach to developing deep relationships with clients near and far, always ensuring that the process to achieving business success is collaborative and enjoyable.

Outside of work, she loves to cook, eat and feed.

Tom Ovens
Creative Director
Shaped By

An ambassador of embracing the art of simplicity, Tom enjoys ripping things apart to delve deeper and explore meaningful ways to create authentic and impactful visual communications.

He loves leading the talented Shaped By design team to push boundaries, build recognition and make a difference for our clients. He is passionate about collaborating with his team, partners and clients to land on creative solutions that help fulfil personal, team and business objectives.

You’ll often hear Tom swooning over a new typeface he’s discovered, or discussing ‘Tittles’ (Google with care). In his free time he loves to disappear on his bike.

Jessica Bognar
Creative Director – Brand
Salesforce

Jessica is an award-winning creative leader at Salesforce with a track record of transforming teams and brands through strategic storytelling, humanity, and humor. For the past eight years she’s been an integral part of building the Salesforce brand. Her current role is leading Brand & Partnerships creative.

Aaron Poe
Head of Creative
Zapier

Aaron Poe is a strategic Creative Director with over 17 years of experience branding and launching natively digital companies. His passion is building brands that are simple and timeless, striking the right balance of emotional connection and functional design. Currently, in his role as Creative Director at Zapier, he leads a multidisciplinary team of brand and digital designers within the global brand studio.

Jessica Rosenberg
Director of Brand Design
ONE

Jessica has 17+ years of experience helping brands tell their stories in differentiated and breakthrough ways.

Jess’s skills as a designer, creative, and leader have been shaped by working across notable companies in advertising and tech: Crispin Porter & Bogusky, Twitter, Cloudflare, Mural, and Webflow. She’s just as passionate about coming up with the big idea as she is executing it. Jess recently joined the Design org at ONE finance leading the brand design function.

Jess lives in Austin, TX with her husband and four kids.

Rachel Gogel
Independent Design Executive

Rachel is a Parisian creative director, graphic designer, educator, and speaker based in San Francisco. She runs her own consultancy where her approach is informed by experiences both in-house and agency side. As a fractional design executive and queer leader, Rachel believes in fostering inclusive spaces that unlock human potential. She is committed to designing teams that build brands — with a focus on culture and technology. Over the last fifteen years, Rachel has led major initiatives at GQ, The New York Times, Meta, Godfrey Dadich, Departures, Airbnb, and Dropbox.

Currently, you can find her shaping employee experiences, coaching design leaders, building TV show pitch decks for public figures and media executives, and developing brand identity systems for academic institutions and startups.

Kaite Rosa
Senior Director of Brand 
Axonius

Kaite Rosa is Senior Director of Brand at Axonius, where she leads the award-winning team responsible for creating a $2.6 billion brand in less than five years. Cited as one of the fastest-growing cybersecurity brands in history, Axonius has been named one of the most valuable private cloud companies in the world by the Forbes Cloud 100, along with numerous industry accolades.

A life-long writer, Kaite is passionate about using storytelling and creative concepts to define and build exceptional brand experiences. Her work on the campaign “Controlling Complexity”, starring the most decorated gymnast of all time, Simone Biles, has earned her two Telly awards.

Nick Farrar
Founder
Shaped By

Nick is the founder of Shaped By and has spent the last 20+ years in working with B2B brands. He has an in-depth understanding of what makes brands work, live and breathe and knows exactly how to maximise ROI for clients.

He is a passionate advocate for the use of creativity in strategic business thinking, and is well-versed in helping others tell their own story through design in a way that engages their audience.

Nando Costa
Designer
Microsoft

Nando Costa is a Brazilian-American artist-turned-designer with a wealth of experience spanning branding, motion graphics, and user experience design. As a design leader at Microsoft, he explores the confluence of traditional 2D UX, immersive three-dimensional environments, and the realm of generative AI technology.

Prelini Udayan-Chiechi
SVP Global Marketing
Zendesk

Prelini leads demand, growth, performance, operations, partner and regional marketing at Zendesk. Her responsibilities include driving all demand and growth for the company’s business in more than 160 countries globally across the entire demand funnel.

As well as being an accomplished public speaker, she is also a passionate advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion. Her role as executive sponsor of Zendesk’s Mosaic employee community helps people of colour and allies at the company to embrace and celebrate their differences.