McAfee's missed messages

When walking through the San Jose Minetta airport on Wednesday, I couldn't help but see McAfee's name strewn throughout the terminal. The marketing folks at McAfee must be on an advertising kick because there are numerous, visible advertisements that read, "Hackers hack code. McAfee hacks hackers."

OK, McAfee, you got my attention, but my question is, just who are you trying to reach with this message? Here is a list of possibilities and my associated confusion:

1. Enterprise customers. This audience doesn't seem likely. Enterprise security today is much more about governance, risk management, and compliance than hacker paranoia. Yes, you do have to guard against hackers, but as part of an overall set of processes and architecture. Doesn't seem like McAfee's advertisements are a good fit here.

2. Consumers. I guess John and Jane Q. Public are more-likely targets, but this seems like a mismatch as well. Consumers want comprehensive protection against viruses, worms, spyware, phishing, etc. The average consumer probably associates the word hacker with movies like Firewall, Swordfish, and War Games--not end-point security.

3. RSA attendees. Maybe, but RSA Conference 2008 isn't for a month and it is in San Francisco, not San Jose.

I've been around high-tech marketing and advertising for a long time and I don't get this strategy or positioning at all. For security professionals, direct fear of hackers harks back to the early 1990s when Kevin Mitnick was on the FBI most-wanted list. Now he is a highly paid security consultant helping companies marry security defenses to business operations. Hmm, maybe this is what McAfee should be talking about as well.

[stijnvs]

Youth

People (17 - 24) probably dig this and probably have a laptop or computer.

[cnetsean]

Typical marketing

As with most marketing schemes the message doesn't really have to mean much as long as it sounds good. These ads have are catchy thus what they mean by "hackers" is irrelevant. It succeeds it catching your eye and sticking McAfee in your head.

[Kev Orng]

"Hacker" doesn't mean "Hacker" here.

Pfft, "hackers" doesn't mean anything, and it doesn't have to mean anything. All it has to do is make the 80% of people out there who are not expertly informed experience a little twinge of fear or disgust or disapproval.

"Hacker" in this context means the same thing as Terrorist, communist, "witch", That-Ethnic-Group That-Isn't-Like-Us, Foreigner, whatever. That is to say, it doesn't mean what you, the informed person, thinks; it means "Look Out! Be Scared..."

And it expresses that meaning well, because I know more than a few average people, like my parents, for example, who have a vaguely defined fear of "Hackers" but don't really know why, and the word alone is enough to coax that sort of primal-alert reaction to unknown dangers.

[robertsco]

Execs With Too Much Time

These are probably also for employees to see, so the executive team can tell employees in a newsletter, "look, we're edgy, we're happening, we even used the word 'badass', and are going to kick some Symantec posterior." The Dave's (Dewalt and Milam) probably gave themselves high fives while wearing their Dockers when these first came up. I imagine these are up in Texas as well, near their Plano headquarters.