Cisco Faces the Masses
How do you advertise something to consumers when the product is hard to understand and you’re competing against massive companies that have already launched splashy image campaigns? If you’re Cisco Systems, the leading maker of networking products for the Internet, you try the “good citizens of the global village” route, favored by such technology giants as IBM to put a human face on their operations.
San Jose-based Cisco will spend up to $60 million worldwide--half of that in the U.S.--beginning Monday with its first TV ad campaign. The ads debut as Cisco seeks to become a major player in the telecom equipment business, going up against such entrenched giants as Lucent Technologies and Nortel.
To further get its name out, Cisco is introducing a “Cisco NetWorks” logo--similar in concept to the successful “Intel Inside” logo--to co-brand electronics products made by other companies. Cisco already has agreements with Sony, Matsushita and US West to co-brand modems, in hopes of making Cisco a household word.
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Jon Holtzman, former brand manager for Apple and current head of Menlo Park, Calif.-based marketing firm Eclipse Worldwide, says the logo is a good idea for Cisco.
“Cisco is a tremendously successful company, but it really needs to brand itself now,” Holtzman said, adding that the success of the so-called ingredient campaign will hinge on the effectiveness of Cisco’s ads.
Cisco’s customers need “to feel it adds value to put another company’s name on their product,” Holtzman said. “That’s where you need a major marketing push to back that up.”
Cisco faces a challenge similar to that of Lucent, which had to build brand identity from scratch after spinning off from AT&T; two years ago. Kathy Fitzgerald, a senior vice president in charge of advertising for Murray Hill, N.J.-based Lucent, says the company’s brand recognition is greater than 90% among business consumers. Among small-business consumers, recognition is lower but respectable at 75%.
Lucent has achieved this through tens of millions of dollars in ad spending, along with carefully orchestrated branding and public relations efforts. Its current campaign emphasizes results--”a data network as reliable as a voice network”--with gently humorous ads.
Cisco, which makes equipment that routes information to Internet surfers, declined to release brand recognition statistics, though spokesman Doug Wills says the firm is primarily known by consumers at this point as a good stock.
Company revenue has rocketed from $69 million in 1990 to $8.5 billion for the fiscal year ended July 25. Cisco is the third-highest-valued company listed on Nasdaq and reached $100 billion in market capitalization faster than any company in history, including Microsoft.
“Grandmothers love us,” Wills joked.
In any case, Cisco clearly has some catching up to do in advertising against Lucent, which spent more than $26 million--mostly on network television--last year.
As with Lucent’s media buys, the primary target for ads will be “business decision makers”--mostly white males ages 25 to 54. That means running the ads during business and sports programs, as well as selected prime-time shows such as NBC’s “ER.”
But Cisco also strives for broad appeal, because the much-discussed “convergence” of communications technology--data, video and voice currently delivered via PC, TV and telephone--is just over the horizon.
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Mike Massaro, chief operating officer of Cisco’s ad firm, Goldberg Moser O’Neill, says months of research and planning went into Cisco’s first TV effort.
“We looked at a lot of other advertising attempts on the part of technology companies,” he said, “and we saw two critical things lacking. One was humanity. . . . The other was facts and substance.”
There are no space-suited “BunnyPeople” in Cisco’s ads, a la Intel’s slick campaign. Cisco and Goldberg Moser chose to have people of all nationalities and ages deliver facts about the Internet in several settings around the globe. Vietnam, Spain, London and New Orleans form the backdrop for little children up to senior citizens to impart messages about the explosive growth of the Internet and ask, “Are you ready?”
