Why Cybersecurity Buyers Ignore 97% of Vendors (And How to Be in the 3%)
What I learned from my conversation with Julie, a veteran cybersecurity CMO who’s led rebrands at multiple high-growth security companies
I just recorded a new Tech Marketing Rewired podcast with Julie Preiss, (CMO at Centripetal), a cybersecurity marketing leader who has spent her career helping security companies get noticed and grow in one of the noisiest markets in tech.
The cybersecurity space is brutal for brand building. Walk the floor at RSA or Black Hat and every company sounds identical: “AI-powered,” “zero trust,” “next-gen.” Technical buyers are drowning in noise and have developed a ruthless filter. If you’re not in the top three vendors they already know, you don’t exist.
Julie’s perspective provides a great framework for building a brand that actually gets noticed—and funded internally.
Here are my biggest takeaways from our conversation:
If You’re Not in the Top Three, You’re Nearly Invisible
Most cybersecurity buyers default to vendors they already know. The market is so crowded and noisy that decision-makers have essentially given up trying to evaluate new options, unless your brand cuts through immediately.
“Every company you come across at these big industry trade shows like RSA and Black Hat, they all sound the same and a lot of times all look the same. So it’s very hard for buyers to distinguish what does this company actually do… Without a really strong brand narrative, I think you’re just lost in the noise.”
My take: This isn’t just a cyber problem. It’s every saturated B2B category. The solution is sharper positioning. Julie’s point about mature buyers being more open to innovation is key: if you can’t be one of the safe, established choices, you need to target the buyers who are actively looking for something different.
Use Performance Metrics to Sell the Rebrand Internally
Getting leadership buy-in for a rebrand is one of the hardest internal sells in marketing. Julie’s approach is refreshingly tactical: build a business case with the same metrics you already track—website traffic, inbound volume, sales cycle length, conversion rates. When those indicators shift, it’s often a signal that your brand isn’t landing.
“If you use metrics with, just like the everyday metrics you track as a marketing leader, your website traffic and engagement, the volume of your inbound leads, the sales cycle duration… When these key indicators start to shift in any significant way, it could very well be a signal that there is an issue with your brand getting seen and heard.”
My take: This flips the script from “brand is squishy” to “brand impacts the numbers you already care about.” CFOs don’t want to hear about brand essence. They want to know why pipeline is softening. Connect the dots for them.
Data Beats Founder Ego Every Time
Anyone who has worked in a founder-led or engineering-led company knows the challenge: the internal team genuinely believes their product is the best thing ever. The problem is, nobody outside the building cares about features—they care about value. Julie uses third-party research to cut through internal bias and ground brand decisions in reality.
“I’ve gotten this a lot—stunned reactions of ‘that can’t be’—or, you know, questioning. What I always say is data literally does not lie. So you can either choose to believe the data or go the other path, which is probably going to get you no further than where you are now.”
My take: This is why external brand partners are worth the investment. They don’t carry the same emotional baggage. And when the research comes back saying customers don’t see you the way you see yourself, it’s a lot easier to accept from a third party than from your own marketing team.
Present Your Brand in the Real World, Not on a Mood Board
Julie shared a tactic that should be standard practice but rarely is: when presenting a new visual identity, don’t just show logos on a white background. Show them in context—trade show booths, LinkedIn posts, ads, competitor comparisons. It changes the conversation from “I don’t like that color” to “I can see how this would work.”
“I always try to present the options in real world executions of it. This is how it would look on a trade show booth. This is how it would look in a LinkedIn post… Having it in a visual manner that I can understand how it would be executed—I think that is super important.”
My take: This also helps with the Phil Knight problem—stakeholders who don’t love a design but can’t articulate why. When they see the before-and-after comparison in context, the new direction almost always looks sharper, more mature, and more competitive. Let the visual do the selling.
The Nike Swoosh Story Should Be Required Reading
Speaking of Phil Knight: Julie tells the story of Nike’s logo as a way to coach stakeholders through the approval process. He didn’t love the swoosh. He just understood why it fit. That’s the bar—not personal preference, but strategic alignment.
“He didn’t have to love it. He just had to understand how it fit and he did. And so he signed off on it… It’s probably the most recognizable logo in the world now.”
My take: I’m stealing this story for every brand launch presentation from now on. The insight is that approval isn’t about making everyone happy—it’s about building shared understanding. If your CEO doesn’t love the new direction but can articulate why it works, you’ve done your job.
Your Brand Should Flex, Not Break
Julie made a point that resonated with my demand gen background: overly rigid brands feel inauthentic and become impossible to use downstream. A strong brand has clear tenets, but it allows for flexibility in how it shows up across channels and campaigns. The rigidity is in the strategy; the execution gets room to breathe.
“It feels inauthentic if you’re really rigid because everything’s fluid. People are fluid, right? If your brand is super rigid, then it starts to feel very stodgy and institutional and not authentic… Just because you’re flexing doesn’t mean you’re not holding true to what the tenets of it are.”
My take: This is the handoff that most companies fumble. Brand team creates beautiful guidelines; demand gen team ignores them because they don’t work for performance marketing. Julie’s solution—build flexibility into the system from the start—is how you keep the brand thread alive across the entire funnel.
The Bottom Line
A strong brand in cybersecurity is a survival mechanism. In a market where every vendor sounds the same and buyers only trust what they already know, your brand is the only thing that earns the right to a conversation.
Julie’s framework is clear: use data to sell internally, distill your story to one thing you do better than anyone, bring external partners in to cut through internal bias, and build a brand that can flex without breaking.
The companies that treat brand as an ongoing investment—not a one-time project—are the ones that stay relevant as the market keeps shifting underneath them.
Listen to the full conversation:
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If you need help with brand strategy, positioning, or demand generation, contact the team at my company, Mighty & True and we’ll be glad to help!