Sophos hires outsiders to lift brand globally

Martin Johnson: Our web presence needs to reflect the specification of our products.

Sophos resellers are confident the anti-virus vendor’s global brand push will help them defeat McAfee and Symantec partners on more enterprise deals.

UK-based Sophos has just appointed an American ­ former Trend Micro director Martin Johnson ­ to the post of director of corporate marketing.

Meanwhile, former Symantec luminary Jill Murray has been recruited to the new position of EMEA marketing director. The two have been tasked with building the vendor’s brand awareness in the UK and the rest of the world.
Paul Prior, managing director of Sophos VAR Foursys, argued Sophos had struggled to market itself sufficiently well in the past.

“Bringing in people with outside experience, particularly from two competing vendors, is extremely important,” he said. “Companies do not like to move 500 or 1,000 desktops to another AV brand so anything that builds the Sophos brand will help.”

Johnson listed increasing web advertising activity as his top priority. “Obviously my being American is significant. My job is to build a bigger profile for Sophos, not just in the UK where it is well embedded, but in EMEA and the US,” he said.
“Our web presence needs to reflect the specification of our products, because customers look at how technically advanced your marketing is when they make judgements about products.”

Johnson also acknowledged partner concerns that Sophos’ partner infrastructure, including its partner portal, lacks sophistication.

“It is one of my major priorities for this year to move the infrastructure to the next level,” he said.