Closing the Cloud Security Gap: The Key Role of Research and PR

This blog was written by Geraldine Fernandez, Say Communications , Practice Leader

Organisations are accelerating their cloud journeys in pursuit of agility, scalability, and innovation. At the same time, a critical challenge often goes unnoticed and risks undermining the investment in cloud modernisation: the visibility gaps that compromise security and performance.

Hybrid cloud environments introduce complex visibility challenges that traditional tools struggle to address. Security teams can’t protect what they can’t see, leaving organisations exposed to threats, and awareness of the risks of blind spots in hybrid cloud is dangerously low in the UK.

TechUK’s Cloud Week is an opportunity to remind cybersecurity vendors of their key role in educating channel partners and end users about evolving threats, and spotlight how research-driven public relations is essential to strengthening the resilience of UK national security. A standout example of this is the award-winning campaign by Say Communications and Gigamon, which recently took home the prize for Best Use of Research at the UK Content & PR Awards. This project offers a blueprint for how research can quickly raise awareness and help shape cloud security strategies.

How research data can change security strategies

Hybrid cloud environments are now the norm, but they bring with them a host of visibility and security challenges. Gigamon, a leader in deep observability, wanted to raise awareness of these issues among IT and security leaders. Say Communications, a B2B tech PR and marketing agency with a deep understanding of how to connect vendor messages with market needs, crafted a global campaign rooted in original research. The approach was simple but powerful: listen to the market, speak to the experts, and share insights that matter.

Security and IT leaders are highly technical and data-focused professionals. To get their attention, campaigns needed to be underpinned by solid research, providing new data and information to help them with their strategic challenges. In Say and Gigamon’s case, the questions for the research were developed based on insights from Gigamon’s clients and using conversations on LinkedIn to identify emerging trends, pain points and possible solutions. Say then surveyed over 1,000 IT and security leaders, including 230+ CISOs, across six global markets to identify macro trends, knowledge gaps, highlight regional differences and identify best practices in hybrid cloud security.

The findings were stark:

Over 1 in 3 breaches go undetected by security tools
70% of CISOs attribute tools’ ineffectiveness to limited visibility
83% of IT and Security leaders cited cloud complexity as increasing their cyber risk
Encrypted traffic and AI data remain misunderstood and under-monitored

These insights revealed a critical gap in cloud security preparedness, positioning solutions that enable greater visibility into all data in motion, including encrypted traffic within an organisation, network traffic generated by AI, and data moving across the hybrid cloud infrastructure, as a vital part of the answer.

From data to dialogue: A peer-led campaign

CISOs don’t want to be sold to. They are a close-knit community that values its members' insights and cherishes opportunities to discuss best practices. By elevating the CISOs' voices and leveraging Gigamon’s own CISO, the insights were positioned as peer-led and credible, resulting in a campaign that didn’t just present data, but created a conversation. The debate about the cloud security preparedness gap was fuelled by a multitude of assets, starting with a global research report and a CISO-focused executive summary.

Infographics, thought leadership videos, and LinkedIn Live events helped make the insights easy to digest and accessible to time-poor decision makers, while localised PR and tailored content ensured that results were relevant for each region. The findings were packaged into sales and channel enablement resources, aligning the entire marketing strategy and cascading best practices globally over 6 months. This exceptional period of sustained engagement ensured the message resonated across markets, partners, and maturity levels.

The long-lasting impact of research-led PR

The results were outstanding. The judges of the UK Content & PR Award praised the “exceptional strategic alignment between objectives, audience insights, and implementation”. The campaign had a “very clear ROI” and “strong commercial outcomes”, which was essential for Gigamon, but more importantly, the campaign helped CISOs and IT leaders rethink their cloud security strategies armed with fresh data, accurate insights, and practical best practices shared by their peers.

When threats evolve faster than tools, investigating the latest trends is essential to set benchmarks, foster innovation and develop effective cyber strategies. It helps organisations identify previously unknown vulnerabilities, understand peer responses, and make informed decisions about cloud security investments. In a connected world, gatekeeping knowledge isn’t an option. That’s why, when paired with expert agencies like Say Communications, research becomes a strategic asset that turns insights into long-lasting impact for vendors and the wider industry.