Cybersecurity startup Abnormal AI wants its marketing to be anything but ordinary.
Abnormal AI exclusively told CMO Insider on Wednesday that it has appointed Don Jeter as its chief marketing officer.
In an interview, Jeter said he has big ambitions to use unconventional marketing techniques as part of a plan to build Abnormal AI into a “household name” brand.
“I want my nephew, who is 14, and my parents to know Abnormal,” Jeter said. “I want to be the most talked-about cybersecurity company in 2027.”
Jeter said that’s why he intends to throw out the traditional business-to-business marketing playbook, which often focuses on features and functions, and instead plans to create “cultural moments” that will capture the attention of all kinds of consumers beyond its CISO target audience.
Founded in 2018, Abnormal made its name using behavioral AI to detect email security threats. It has since expanded the technology to help companies spot unusual activity in employees’ digital accounts and logins, and is increasingly applying the same approach to securing organizations’ use of AI tools. The company was valued at $5.1 billion after a $250 million Series D funding round in 2024.
One of Jeter’s near-term challenges is resetting the narrative that Abnormal is only an email security company.
He’ll be attempting to do so in a noisy market, competing for mindshare against the marketing heft of trillion-dollar tech giants and buzzy frontier AI companies, as well as the cybersecurity vendors jostling for chief information security officers’ budgets.
“Right now, in this market, you’ve got to build trust and awareness before the sales conversation starts,” Jeter said. “If you do brand marketing correctly, everything else gets easier; it signals to the market you are winning.”
While he wanted to keep his specific plans under wraps for now, Jeter said out-of-home advertising and other IRL activations are likely to play key roles in Abnormal AI’s marketing mix.
“We want to create stuff that people naturally want to share and participate in,” Jeter said. “With great marketing, you never have to ask your employees to ‘please share and retweet.'”
B2B brands are increasingly taking a more business-to-consumer marketing approach. Salesforce and Adobe hold their glitzy Dreamforce and MAX conferences. Autodesk has a string of major sports team partnerships and splurged to advertise on the Las Vegas Sphere. Elsewhere, Ramp enlisted former pro skater Tony Hawk for a comedic campaign that culminated with him dropping in and skating on a ramp during a live event outside the New York Stock Exchange and around the trading floor.
“A B2B buyer is still a person who remembers a great story, and in a category where nearly every company is promising smarter AI, tighter security, or faster results, IRL connection gives people a reason to remember one brand over another,” said Steve Nottingham, CEO of the commerce experience agency RSM&, about Jeter’s plans for Abnormal AI.
Nottingham said CMOs who want to execute these kinds of activations need to start with a clear objective, an idea that could only come from their brand, a defined audience, a parallel content strategy that allows for amplification, and measurement that clearly connects the buzz to brand awareness and the sales pipeline.
“Done thoughtfully, a real-world moment can work harder than almost any other line in the budget, because the conversation it starts keeps going well beyond the day itself,” Nottingham said.
Jeter has experience in this area. As CMO of cybersecurity startup Torq, he built the brand through deliberately offbeat marketing campaigns. Torq sponsored Monster Jam’s nationwide tour for its “Torq, not torque” campaign, then brought a 20-foot inflatable skeleton and an on-site tattoo bus to the 2026 RSAC cybersecurity conference.
“B2B marketing, in general, has played it safe for a very long time, and what we are seeing is that’s no longer working in today’s culture and scarce attention economy,” Jeter said. “Safe is boring, and boring is invisible.”
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