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July 06, 2015

Anna Ruth Williams

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Partner

If you’ve ever heard me speak about integrated communications, you know how passionate I am about the discipline and the value it brings to brands big and small.

There is simply no other branch of the communications tree – not advertising, marketing or social media – that can independently create the right balance and cadence of valuable content. Integrated communications also enables brands to embrace both objectivity (fact) and subjectivity (emotion) with frequency and ease; an important strategy often overlooked, especially by B2B exclusive marketers.

Today’s ‘consumer’ - whether that be an individual, a small business or a Fortune 500, requires dynamic engagement that spans medium, method and approach. As appropriately noted by Customer Experience Insights, “the line has blurred between the B2B and B2C customer experience.”

B2B companies specifically, regardless of industry, are typically slower to embrace communication trends than their B2C counterparts, as evident by their painstakingly slow adoption of social media. I suspect that this is partly driven by budget constraints but also partly due to the fact that expedience of ROI can vary significantly, and time is always of the essence. To date, this reluctance or avoidance is in particularly palpable among cybersecurity companies.

The FUD Syndrome

Those in the cybersecurity industry know that the major challenges for many cybersecurity companies are primarily twofold: 1) there is either an immediate need (i.e. discovery of a hack, virus etc.) that presents an immediate opportunity or 2) there are competitive motivations to go-to-market expeditiously. In both situations, the foundation for which it takes to build a brand – such as messaging, branding, and competitive differentiation etc. – become secondary; and the default strategy has been to appeal to fear, or what the industry recognizes as FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt).

Since the mass emergence of cybersecurity in the mid 1990’s, the industry has intensely embodied the old H.P. Lovecraft quote, The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” Marketing to this emotion has made a lot of people very rich.

Fast forward to present today, and the flood of cybersecurity headlines is scaring the pants off of everyone. Civilians must now worry about their privacy. Small business owners must now proactively prevent against identity theft; and the mid-market and corporate giants are all but forced into spending millions to protect assets and intellectual property. Such are the times; but is the marketing strategy centered on fear still the best option?

Integrated Communications for Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity companies are not immune to the changing communications landscape. In today’s media environment, when cybersecurity companies only market to fear, they’re minimizing opportunities to accelerate brand awareness, competitive differentiation, and prospective ROI – all of which are significant influencers to the decision maker.

Perhaps the most famous recent high-profile example of marketing to fear gone awry is Nationwide Insurance’s 2015 Super Bowl commercial. The ad, which depicts a child’s death, was certainly produced with good intentions, but ultimately failed to connect with any audience on any level. The unintended consequences for Nationwide were tremendous, and the company suffered what some predict will be permanent damage to the brand’s identity.

The takeaway from the Nationwide commercial for cybersecurity companies should be that fear is not always the appropriate motivator. This is especially important to consider as more people, at businesses of all sizes, are forced to deliberate cybersecurity solutions, and the number of decision makers without “security” in their titles grows exponentially. Knowing this reality, cybersecurity companies must understand, and embrace, that they can no longer afford to pigeonhole themselves into a linear marketing strategy in which one single emotion dominates. The diversity of the buyer, and the media and marketing landscape, now demand more.

That’s why integrated communications is the perfect fit for so many cybersecurity companies. Implementing an integrated communications strategy would allow any cyber company to produce a dichotomy of content that speaks to multiple buyer personas, with varying motivations, budgets and agendas. It’s the ultimate opportunity to still project fear strategically, but to balance this powerful emotion with other sentiments, facts and calls-to-action.

Over the past two years, AR|PR’s cybersecurity practice group has been fortunate to partner with companies like Bastille, NexDefense and Barkly; all of which boast excellent leadership and breakthrough technology. To see how these brands effectively use integrated communications, view the following case studies:

Want to learn more about AR|PR’s 360 ° approach and capabilities? Contact us today.