Category creation: Leveraging global integrated PR & social media

Gigamon, a deep observability company, has been a long-term partner of Inkhouse; since 2018, we have supported the company through many milestones while keeping pace with the changes that have occurred over the years from both a PR perspective as well as the rapidly evolving cybersecurity threat landscape itself. This created the need for our team to be scrappier and more creative than ever in breaking through the noise and helping to build overall brand awareness. 

In 2022, we were tasked with helping to create and build brand awareness for the deep observability market category. The team capitalized on integrated efforts, including earned, owned, and paid tactics, globally, to reach its target audience through a variety of channels.

To support this category creation initiative on a global scale, we worked with the four additional Gigamon regional PR agencies (APAC, UK, FR, GER) to position Gigamon as the leading deep observability vendor. We focused on three main areas: 

• Earned media. We position Gigamon and its executives as industry experts through a variety of thought leadership efforts, including content placement, rapid response, and proactive media relations. The team also hosted an RSA Conference media breakfast with the CSO of Gigamon and like-minded clients for an intimate conversation on trending industry topics, including critical hybrid cloud infrastructure security, enabling Gigamon to weave its value proposition into real-world scenarios and build relationships with relevant press. 
• Creative, integrated campaigns. To reach a broader audience and boost the company’s market leadership, Inkhouse tapped into influencer activations. This included partnering with two well-known industry influencers as third-party advocates for the brand—Dana Gardner, a top IT influencer (200K+ followers) as well as Shira Rubinoff, a top security influencer (130K+ followers). These paid engagements included multiple video and podcast episodes that were cross-promoted on their individual social media platforms as well as the Gigamon website. Each video honed in on the importance of deep observability to maintain a strong cybersecurity posture across hybrid cloud infrastructure.
• Commissioned research. Gigamon released a Global Hybrid Cloud Security research report that showed perception vs. reality gaps across IT and security teams as it relates to cloud security. This helped inform thoughtful media angles, thought leadership messaging and bylined articles for the program.
• Social amplification. Through a steady cadence of social amplification, including culture-based posts, company announcements, thought leadership, and video-based content, we were  able to help humanize the Gigamon brand while continuing to push relevant deep observability messaging to increase overall engagement.

Our integrated approach team helped move the needle for the business and secure impactful media coverage; overall net new social media followers increased by 19 percent from 2021 while simultaneously garnering a 7 percent uptick in engagement and a staggering 38 percent growth in total website-driven traffic. The Hybrid Cloud Security research report resulted in a briefing and on-message article with TechRepublic, several thought leadership pieces from executives in Forbes, quotes in CSO and more.

However, the work doesn’t stop there and requires ongoing integrated PR efforts to break through the noise and help Gigamon stand out among its competitors. As of 2024, Gigamon commands  67% of the deep observability market, a market forecasted to eclipse  $2B by 2027. The company has achieved a groundbreaking 38 consecutive profitable quarters with over 100 percent growth YoY as the adoption of the company’s deep observability pipeline continues to ramp globally.