Johannesburg, 11 Dec 2023
Orange Cyberdefense, which is recognised as a global leader in IT security, and has its South African headquarters in Pretoria, has collaborated with exceptional local creatives to bring the world of cyber security to life. At the helm of Orange Cyberdefense’s marketing efforts in southern Africa is Marketing Manager Dillon Bensusan, who is committed to spotlighting South African talent.
“One thing no one can deny about South Africans is our immense creativity,” says Bensusan. “From ingenious copywriters to stunning illustrators and boundary-pushing artists, there are so many talented emerging creatives out there eager to collaborate with corporate South Africa. It’s a win-win; not only do we support local artists' careers, but we also meet our brand objectives by enhancing our storytelling and captivating audiences.”
The organisation is extremely proud of its creative collaborations – most of which were formed through LinkedIn.
“Finding ways of infiltrating an organisation’s IT systems requires an incredible amount of creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. In many ways, hacking is an art form in itself,” says Bensusan, who believes more South African businesses should be drawing on the expertise of artists to create unique and memorable brand experiences and elevate their marketing messaging. “I see it as a thought-provoking intersection between tech and art.
“So much of what we see from brands, especially B2B brands, is dull, generic ‘stock image’ marketing that’s not inspiring anyone to stop scrolling and click, let alone fill in their details. In such a competitive digital world, using creativity to cut through the noise is one way we can get people more interested in the content we’re publishing. And the content that our Security Research Centre, for instance, is producing is so informative and interesting, it’s important that people see it and want to engage with it. It’s my job to ensure that happens.
“Successful marketing is all about taking risks. Establishing an identity that is different to what everyone else is doing is essential to gaining top-of-mind brand consideration. Whatever risks you can take to get noticed and occupy more real estate in your customer’s mind, without losing credibility, the better – and one of the ways we like to do that with Orange Cyberdefense is through evocative visuals.
"World-class hacking services deserve to be accompanied by edgy and exciting graphics – from world-class creatives.”
Bensusan outlines some of the creatives who are bringing the Orange Cyberdefense brand to life:
Puleng Stewart & Kei-Ella Loewe – The Black Wall short story
This was an extremely experimental project.
We commissioned multidisciplinary artist, Puleng Stewart, to write a story for us that explores a possible future for South Africa.
What she created is absolutely brilliant – it's gripping, well-written and extremely topical – it speaks to some of the most serious issues we are facing as a country and a world currently.
She paints a South Africa devastated by drought, where Koeburg has been blown up, Cape Town is a baking hot marshland, Lesotho has become the richest powerhouse in the region due to their water reserves, and the rich have synced to escape the heat and live out a virtual existence.
Stewart performed this story to a select number of information security leaders and executives at exclusive Cyber Leadership Roundtable experiences in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Following the performance, we facilitated a strategic scenario planning conversation with attendees – sparked by the future world Stewart had created. We wanted to get attendees to shift their thinking from the operational day-to-day ‘near-future’ thinking that they’re most probably very used to in their roles, to the 'further future', and explore what that might mean for our industry.
With the help of the amazing illustrator, Kei-Ella Loewe, we then turned the story into a book, which we printed and distributed at various IT events.
A note from the author, Puleng Stewart, on the project:
“The practice of imagining the future is, in itself, a primary means of shaping it. We pour into those imaginings our deepest hopes and fears, our optimism and dread, and in so doing, paint a picture of the world we are currently in, in ways which shape us in turn. We are as truthfully writers of the future as we are products of the past. My deepest gratitude goes to the forward-thinking team at Orange Cyberdefense for understanding the value and power of art to open up conversations and new pathways into the future.”
Download your copy of The Black Wall here
Unathi Dyani – Patterns in Chaos t-shirt design
We collaborated with super talented South African-based artist and illustrator Unathi Dyani to create an Afrofuturist artwork inspired by the theme of ‘Finding Patterns in Chaos’ for our annual company t-shirt design. We asked Dyani to explore this theme – which speaks to a lot of what we do as an organisation – in his unique illustration style and to represent his personal perspective in the design.
“We wanted a theme that spoke to our work as both pentesters and blue teamers, and Finding Patterns in Chaos does that: Where pentetsers are hunting for patterns so that they can manipulate them, blue teamers are processing and making sense of large amounts of data, information and logs to protect the IT environment,” said Orange Cyberdefense SensePost Managing Director Dominic White.
Musonda Kabwe – ITWeb Security Summit 2023 artwork
Musonda created an incredible artwork depicting a cyber punk action scene, which we printed on t-shirts for the ITWeb Security Summit 2023.
The artwork gives off an anti-establishment, viva-la-revolution feel and really captures the hacker aesthetic.
He brought the Orange Cyberdefense brand to life in a vibrant, one-of-a-kind way, which immediately connected with attendees of the conference.
Racheal Kazembe – 2023 #NoBiasInCyber campaign
As part of an internal Women’s Month campaign we ran at Orange Cyberdefense in August 2023, we commissioned up-and-coming African artist, designer and illustrator Racheal Kazembe to create an artwork for us that represented female excellence in #infosec. The campaign was all about spotlighting women in cyber and promoting #NoBiasInCyber. Through the campaign, we encouraged the IT industry to keep visibly celebrating female excellence in the field and creating workspaces where women feel empowered to contribute their excellence.
Both the local and global Orange Cyberdefense team loved the striking visual Kazembe made for us.
Keep an eye on the Orange Cyberdefense social channels as they integrate their industry-leading threat intelligence research with thrilling graphics.
Follow Orange Cyberdefense on LinkedIn and X to stay up to date.
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