10 Cybersecurity Ads That Work, and How to Plan Yours
If you’re planning a cybersecurity advertising campaign, choosing the creative, or looking for messaging that a CISO won’t scroll past, start here. Ten security video ads, from a Broadway musical to a cat video, and what each one does that most security advertising doesn’t.
The Problem with Most Cybersecurity Advertisements
Most cybersecurity ads are stuck in the Stone Age of marketing, which is very ironic considering how complex and advanced the products are. Yet, many of these ads fail to connect because of a few recurring issues.
Most Ads Have the Wrong Message
Many cybersecurity ads focus on features, brand name and logo, or their “solution” without really articulating the problem. Some don’t even have a message: just a shield or a lock with a brand name next to it. They use too much jargon and fail to convey the human pain behind the problem. Features like acronyms and tech specs are things few outside IT care about. Instead, cybersecurity ads should address the real stakes: data loss, downtime, and the anxiety that keeps CISOs awake at night. To put it simply: your ad message should focus on the specific problem buyers have and that your brand solves.
Most Ads Have the Wrong Communication Style
Most cybersecurity ads feel like they’re competing for the title of “Most Cliché Cybersecurity Ad.” The result? People scroll past them. Remember, emotions are needed to get attention and be remembered. Logic comes into play later when making a buying decision. But in advertising, you need to lead with emotion and leave the logic for the sales conversation. You can’t bore strangers into listening, remembering, and sharing your ad. Making an explainer rather than an ad? Here is how to build a security product explainer without the clichés.
Most Ads Have the Wrong Medium
Text-heavy white papers or static banner ads? In an age where everyone is glued to Netflix, YouTube, and social media, your buyers are humans. Video can show the urgency, the emotion, and the real impact of security issues in a way that written words just can’t. Video may seem more expensive upfront, but wasting your ad budget on static content no one engages with is far more costly. Better creative = lower CACs.
My Criteria for These Cybersecurity Video Ad Examples
Instead of making my criteria based on “Ads That Tell You It’s A Cybersecurity Ad In 1 Second,” I focused on: Does it address a real problem the ideal audience has? Is it communicated in a way the audience actually enjoys? Is it emotional enough to create a memory of the brand for the 95% of out-of-market buyers? Do viewers explicitly express that they enjoyed watching it? Perfect cybersecurity ads are rare, but these examples stand out as the best.
Top 10 Cybersecurity Video Ads
Cybersecurity Ad Example 1: Cybersecurity and Skincare by 1Password
Why this cybersecurity ad works: Not everyone has the budget to hire Ryan Reynolds. But the actor is only a small factor in the execution of this ad. The human brain ignores the majority of stimuli in its environment. It gives attention selectively to stimuli that stand out. When you break the pattern and target the emotion of surprise, the brain pays attention and remembers. This ad breaks the pattern in so many ways. Always think of Bobathor the Caveman when creating ads: you can’t bore strangers into looking at your ads. Only make them feel.
Cybersecurity Ad Example 2: Perfect Match by EXN & Thales
Why this cybersecurity ad works: We produced this ad (one of three in the ‘Knight Series’). It’s a great combination of targeting the high-arousal emotions of awe, surprise, and amusement while telling a relevant story about personal data. Surprise: a knight at a bar. You don’t see that every day. Amusement: a knight attempting to give his number to a girl at a bar is pretty dang funny. Awe: the overcoming of rejection to find his true and perfect match: another knight! And with simple video production like this, it’s much more budget friendly than Ryan Reynolds.
Cybersecurity Ad Example 3: Wizer Cybersecurity Awareness Training
Why this cybersecurity ad works: This ad follows the PESO Formula. Problem: it focuses on a root problem buyers face. Emotion: it uses humor to highlight the pains of the problem. Solution: it clearly presents the brand’s solution. Outcome: it shows the positive result of solving the issue. When you use the PESO Formula in a brand video ad, the 95% of out-of-market buyers remember your brand as the go-to solution to this specific problem when they become ready to buy. The 5% in-market buyers will see that you understand the problem so well, you obviously understand the solution the best. A key principle: the brand that understands the problem the best, from the buyer’s perspective, understands the solution the best.
Cybersecurity Ad Example 4: Troy by CrowdStrike
Why this cybersecurity ad works: When using the PESO Formula, a key component is to use metaphor to break down the message about the problem to its simplest nature while making it emotional and funny. The trojan horse is a story we all know. And because it’s something we all know, the problem is immediately clear. The more clear, simple, and visible the problem is in the mind of the buyer, the more they will see you as the go-to solution.
Cybersecurity Ad Example 5: Checkpoint
Why this cybersecurity ad works: The messaging about the problem could be a bit more specific here. But one thing is for sure: this ad gets heard and remembered. Clicking on links and videos of cute cats or dogs is something that is very relatable and funny, and that relatability is what makes it stick.
Cybersecurity Ad Example 6: Ransomware by Thales
Why this cybersecurity ad works: Humor is usually the best way to make advertising more emotional and memorable. But sometimes it can be hard to get buy-in from the exec team. This is a great example of how to target the emotion of surprise without humor. Instead of just talking about the problem, it demonstrates the problem in a non-obvious way, making it more memorable in the mind of buyers. We made this one too.
Cybersecurity Ad Example 7: CISO Musical by Wiz
Why this cybersecurity ad works: Wiz turns the CISO’s week into a Broadway show. Dancers carry giant blocks labelled CSPM, DSPM and ASPM, vendor calls pile up, and a number called “Blame it on the Intern” throws a scapegoat across the stage. Every security buyer has lived the overload, so the joke lands before the product appears. The acronyms that clutter most security ads become the punchline instead of the pitch. See the full breakdown in our ad library.
Cybersecurity Ad Example 8: Illuminate and Defend by Forescout
Why this cybersecurity ad works: A security team plays a tabletop game called “Dungeons & Data”. The network is a diorama, and each player takes a real role: CISO, researcher, SOC analyst. A misconfiguration hides in a legacy system, an old tool gets ruled out because it has been deprecated, and Forescout’s real-time visibility lifts the “Dread”. It’s made for practitioners, in a world they recognise, and the product’s job (seeing what’s hidden) is the turning point of the story. See the full breakdown in our ad library.
Cybersecurity Ad Example 9: Make Cybersecurity Less Alien by Veeam
Why this cybersecurity ad works: A presenter walks a boardroom through cyber risk in pure jargon (MFA, privileged accounts, lateral movement) until one executive admits, “Honestly, it’s all aliens to me.” Then the presenter begins, quite literally, to turn alien. It’s the clearest picture we’ve seen of the problem this page opens with: security marketing that talks in acronyms to people who don’t speak them. The metaphor makes the point before the product appears. See the full breakdown in our ad library.
Cybersecurity Ad Example 10: Exposure Management by Check Point
Why this cybersecurity ad works: It starts with the smallest exposure everyone has had: a sarcastic message about the boss’s yellow blazer sent to Reply All. From there it escalates into a security operations centre. Starting with a human embarrassment, not a threat actor, makes “exposure” mean something to people outside IT. It’s a good example of finding the everyday version of an abstract product. See the full breakdown in our ad library.
How to Plan a Cybersecurity Advertising Campaign
The ten ads above share a pattern. None of them leads with a feature list, and all of them make an invisible product easy to picture. Here’s how to plan a campaign that does the same.
- Start with one problem your buyer already feels. Alert fatigue, a board that can’t follow the jargon, a Reply All. Pick the one your product removes and build the whole campaign around it. A campaign that tries to cover five features gets remembered for none.
- Find the metaphor before the storyboard. A trojan horse, a musical, a tabletop game. The metaphor is what lets a CISO and a CFO understand the same ad, and it’s much harder for a competitor to copy than a colour grade.
- Plan the whole cluster, not one ad. One hero film, then 6, 15 and 30 second cutdowns in 16:9, 1:1, 4:5 and 9:16, built to work with the sound off. Sales needs a version they can send, and events need a loop for the booth screen.
- Cut it for each buyer. Practitioners want proof the product works. The CISO wants to know it reduces risk without adding work. The board wants the business consequence. Same idea, different cut.
- Measure memory, not only clicks. Most security buyers aren’t ready to buy on the day they see your ad (the 95-5 rule). Track branded search, direct traffic and which videos sales actually sends, alongside click-through rate.
Looking for launch and explainer films rather than ads? See the 9 best cybersecurity product videos of the year. Planning a launch? See how we make launch and explainer video or what a cybersecurity video costs.
Why Cybersecurity Marketing Needs to Be Done Differently
Cybersecurity marketing can’t just follow the generic B2B marketing playbook. There are two unique components that make it different:
Most Potential Security Buyers Are Problem Unaware
All buyers buy because of problems. But not all problems are the same. There are obvious problems (easy to identify, like slow communication) and non-obvious problems, like dormant malware, where the pains haven’t been felt yet. Most security services solve non-obvious problems. Therefore, their marketing needs to focus not just on empathizing with current pains, but making buyers aware of root causes and future consequences. If they don’t see the problem, they won’t see the need for your solution. The opportunity: when you’re the brand that makes them aware of the problem and shows you understand it best, they perceive you as the brand that best understands the solution.
Huge Opportunity for Differentiation
In no other category do advertisements look so similar. The opportunity? Stand out. When every ad is telling the same story in the same way, there’s a massive chance to differentiate with emotional ads that actually connect. Humor works because it’s unexpected in this space. It grabs attention and makes you memorable in a field where most brands are playing it way too safe. You might say, “But we’re not a funny brand. We’re serious!” To which my response: when you talk to clients, do you never make them smile? The message is what’s serious: the problem and the risk. But how you communicate that message can be funny. Unless you prefer strangers to never consume the message in the first place.
Launching a security product? Let’s make it the one they remember.
Launch and explainer video for security, identity and fraud companies. The kind sales sends and buyers still recognise months later.
Frequently Asked Questions
Cybersecurity ads tend to fall into two failure modes: fear-mongering with generic threat imagery like hackers in hoodies, or dry technical specs that only resonate with IT professionals already deep in evaluation. Neither builds the brand trust needed to win in a crowded market.
The best cybersecurity video ads translate complex technical protection into human consequences. They make the stakes feel real and personal rather than abstract and technical, without resorting to clichéd fear tactics. Connecting security to business continuity and people’s livelihoods is far more powerful than threat imagery.
Lead with the human cost of the problem, not the technical spec of the solution. Cybersecurity buyers are trying to protect their organisation, their career, and their reputation. Ads that connect with those underlying motivations outperform product-feature ads by a wide margin.
The biggest mistakes are: relying on stock imagery of threats, leading with product features before establishing relevance, using jargon that only resonates with technical buyers, and ignoring the 95% of the market that is not actively evaluating vendors right now.
CISOs respond to business risk, compliance, and strategic outcomes. IT teams respond to technical performance, integration, and operational efficiency. Great cybersecurity advertising identifies which audience it is talking to. A CISO fears a board conversation; an IT manager fears a 3am outage.
One problem the buyer already feels, one idea that makes the product easy to picture, and enough versions to run everywhere the buyer is: a hero film, short cutdowns for paid social, and a version sales can send. The campaigns that work in security are remembered for one thing, not ten features.
It depends on the scope: animation or a live-action shoot, how many versions and lengths, talent and licences. Our video cost guide breaks down what moves the price.