The cybersecurity business has no scarcity of cubicles, demos, product launches, and vendor pitches. At main occasions resembling Black Hat, safety leaders can spend days shifting from one dialog to the following, usually turning into the folks everybody desires quarter-hour from.
Daylight Safety determined to flip that dynamic.
As an alternative of constructing a conventional sales space at Black Hat, the corporate launched the “CISO Genie,” a non-public concierge designed to assist safety leaders with the sensible challenges of navigating the convention. The initiative grew to become the main target of a pair of humorous movies shared on LinkedIn by Hagai Shapira, Co-Founder and CEO of Daylight, drawing important engagement whereas giving the corporate a artistic technique to talk its method to serving CISOs.
The first video opens with a CISO assembly the fictional genie, who explains his function in unusually particular phrases.
“I grant needs for CISOs. I examine incidents, settle down executives, and persuade safety groups to not give up.”
The idea shortly strikes past the normal three-wishes system. The genie gives a variety of providers, together with a quiet assembly room, contemporary shirt, dinner reservation, personal airport pickup, and private barber.
“Was once three. Then somebody hacked the lamp. Modified it to limitless.”
The joke is constructed round a severe remark: Safety leaders attending main business occasions have their very own wants, however these wants are hardly ever the main target of the convention expertise.
A Totally different Sort Of Black Hat Presence
Daylight’s choice to skip the normal sales space is central to the marketing campaign. Within the LinkedIn publish accompanying the primary video, Shapira wrote, “A Black Hat sales space prices about the identical as caring for 150 CISOs for a whole week. We selected the CISOs.”
That call is mirrored within the concierge providers described within the publish, which embrace airport pickup, espresso, a quiet room, and a charger earlier than a telephone dies. Fairly than asking safety leaders for his or her time, the marketing campaign is constructed round offering one thing in return.
“Somebody lastly asking CISOs what they want, as a substitute of asking for quarter-hour of their time,” Shapira wrote.
The video takes that premise and turns it right into a collection of more and more absurd requests. When the genie is requested whether or not Black Hat is de facto that tough, he responds, “We classify Black Hat as a hostile atmosphere.”
One other scene has the genie serving to a CISO who forgot to purchase his baby a gift. The scenario is handled with the identical urgency as a safety incident.
“Inform me that’s not a menace,” the genie says.
The humor additionally extends to the corporate’s personal positioning. When requested about Daylight, the genie responds, “We redefined safety. We additionally redefined safety. We redefined the redefinition.”
The alternate performs on the business’s tendency to repeatedly redefine cybersecurity classes and terminology, whereas protecting the concentrate on the marketing campaign’s central character: the CISO attempting to outlive one other demanding convention.
From CISO Concierge To “Vendor Nightmares”
Daylight continued the marketing campaign with a second video, once more shared by Shapira on LinkedIn. The sequel begins with a joke concerning the firm’s branding efforts: “Advertising and marketing stated there wasn’t sufficient daylight branding within the first video, so we made just a few changes.”
The second episode expands on the CISO Genie’s fictional workload. One particular person asks if there’s a sooner approach throughout Mandalay Bay. One other requests a desk for eight at Carbone at 7 p.m., which the genie describes as harder than a ransomware negotiation.
“I’ve dealt with ransomware negotiations. This was more durable.”
The video then turns its consideration towards one other acquainted function of the cybersecurity business: the relentless use of know-how buzzwords. The genie demonstrates how he supposedly retains up with the whole lot he must know by repeatedly chanting, “We’re agentic! We’re agentic! We’re AI-native agentic! Once more! Extra disruptive! Agentic! Each morning.”
The second video additionally introduces the “quiet room,” which the genie calls “a very powerful room at Black Hat.”
“Why are we whispering?”
“CISOs are recovering.”
The accompanying LinkedIn publish retains the tone intentionally mild. “No thought management right this moment. Simply press play,” Shapira wrote. He additionally clarified the road between the marketing campaign’s fiction and actuality: “The concierge is actual. The coaching academy is just not.”
Behind the humor, nevertheless, is a constant message. Daylight’s first LinkedIn publish states that the corporate was constructed across the perception that “safety providers ought to really feel completely different. Much less noise. Much less friction. Higher outcomes. Extra accountability.”
The CISO Genie marketing campaign interprets that philosophy into one thing audiences can instantly perceive. As an alternative of utilizing Black Hat as one other alternative to ask safety leaders for his or her consideration, Daylight created a marketing campaign centered on giving one thing again. In doing so, the corporate has turned a well-known cybersecurity convention expertise right into a story concerning the people who find themselves normally anticipated to navigate it.
