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A tech giant wants you to know who it is
Cisco. Cisco. Cisco. Cisco.
Cisco.
Cisco.
Get used to it. The networking giant is rolled out a new round of ads last month as part of its Human Network campaign. You know, Human Network - as in you and me.
You'll see the ads during football games and on the Weather Channel. On Web sites and on CNN. It will be part of the daily fire hose of promotional messages you dodge or absorb or ignore.
What do you mean, why? Why would a company best known for building switches and routers want you to get to know and love them? Isn't promoting the hidden guts of the Internet a bit like a city advertising its tap water?
That's the problem with us mere, non-marketing mortals. We don't get it. Companies today don't sell just products. They sell a brand. They want their names stamped in your brain the same way they stamp it on laptops and Web sites and software and yes, on switches and routers.
"Brand recognition means a lot," says Gartner analyst Joe Skorupa, who follows Cisco. "The whole 'Human Network' is to find ways to get into new markets, to be well-positioned, and also it's to get people conditioned to buy Cisco, to think Cisco."
Yes, it is possible to get consumers to think warm and fuzzy about cold, hard tech. Remember Intel and the Bunny People (disco dancing clean room workers) and the Blue Man Group? And now consumers - some anyway - browsing at Fry's or Best Buy ask the question: Is Intel inside?
Cisco's campaign, which features business warriors saving themselves from harried trips by using Cisco's high-end teleconferencing equipment, says something about the company and it says something about us.
About Cisco, the global marketing maneuvering says it's not the company it started out to be. Like many Silicon Valley successes, San Jose-based Cisco seeks to morph with the times and technology in order to find and conquer new markets. The company has had its eye on everyday consumers for years.
It bought home router-maker Linksys in 2003 and set-top box maker Scientific Atlanta in 2006. Getting you to know Cisco is a smart move for a company that might have grander designs on your home. (They want you to know them only so well. Company officials declined to discuss the campaign's cost.)
In fact, as I sat with Cisco chief marketing officer Susan Bostrom in her office last month, she pointed at the TelePresence system she uses to meet virtually with co-workers around the world and said such gizmos will be in homes before we know it.
"I think it's very clear that Cisco will be playing an important role in the consumer experience," Bostrom says.
Sure, Cisco might already be a household name in Silicon Valley. But the company is going after the rest of the world. Think of the potential for the company to win big as homes become smarter with all sorts of George Jetson devices to run the house and entertain those who live in it.
What the ad campaign says about us is that technology has moved beyond a convenience and into the realm of necessity. Technology washes through our lives, from work to home and back. Sure, Cisco's campaign is aimed at everyday consumers, but those same people are sometimes the people who make business decisions and technology decisions at their companies, says Marilyn Mersereau, a senior marketing vice president who joined Bostrom and me.
"So it' s much more relevant for you as a viewer to be considered in all aspects of your life," Mersereau says, "whether you're using a personal device for your home life or for your business life."
Technology is a constant companion and the selling of it has become part of our pop culture.
Apple is now a retailer and music vendor that's dropped "computer" from its name. Microsoft briefly employed Jerry Seinfeld to star in inscrutable (but I thought pretty funny) ads with Bill Gates. (No truth to the rumor Cisco considered Seinfeld, but worried chief executive John Chambers wouldn't be cool with adjusting his undershorts a la Gates on national television.)
The slick Cisco ads, which will be broadcast across the globe, are only part of a campaign that has seen product placement on "CSI," "24," "Heroes" and sponsorship of NCAA basketball.
Yes, you'll be seeing plenty of Cisco in the coming months. But whether the humans in the human network respond is a question that might take years to answer.
___
(Mike Cassidy is a technology columnist for the San Jose Mercury News. Read his Loose Ends blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/Cassidy and contact him at mcassidy_at_mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5536.)
___
© 2008, San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.).
Visit MercuryNews.com, the World Wide Web site of the Mercury News, at http://www.mercurynews.com
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
What do you mean, why? Why would a company best known for building switches and routers want you to get to know and love them? Isn't promoting the hidden guts of the Internet a bit like a city advertising its tap water?
That's the problem with us mere, non-marketing mortals. We don't get it. Companies today don't sell just products. They sell a brand. They want their names stamped in your brain the same way they stamp it on laptops and Web sites and software and yes, on switches and routers.
"Brand recognition means a lot," says Gartner analyst Joe Skorupa, who follows Cisco. "The whole 'Human Network' is to find ways to get into new markets, to be well-positioned, and also it's to get people conditioned to buy Cisco, to think Cisco."
Yes, it is possible to get consumers to think warm and fuzzy about cold, hard tech. Remember Intel and the Bunny People (disco dancing clean room workers) and the Blue Man Group? And now consumers - some anyway - browsing at Fry's or Best Buy ask the question: Is Intel inside?
Cisco's campaign, which features business warriors saving themselves from harried trips by using Cisco's high-end teleconferencing equipment, says something about the company and it says something about us.
About Cisco, the global marketing maneuvering says it's not the company it started out to be. Like many Silicon Valley successes, San Jose-based Cisco seeks to morph with the times and technology in order to find and conquer new markets. The company has had its eye on everyday consumers for years.
It bought home router-maker Linksys in 2003 and set-top box maker Scientific Atlanta in 2006. Getting you to know Cisco is a smart move for a company that might have grander designs on your home. (They want you to know them only so well. Company officials declined to discuss the campaign's cost.)
In fact, as I sat with Cisco chief marketing officer Susan Bostrom in her office last month, she pointed at the TelePresence system she uses to meet virtually with co-workers around the world and said such gizmos will be in homes before we know it.
"I think it's very clear that Cisco will be playing an important role in the consumer experience," Bostrom says.
What the ad campaign says about us is that technology has moved beyond a convenience and into the realm of necessity. Technology washes through our lives, from work to home and back. Sure, Cisco's campaign is aimed at everyday consumers, but those same people are sometimes the people who make business decisions and technology decisions at their companies, says Marilyn Mersereau, a senior marketing vice president who joined Bostrom and me.
"So it' s much more relevant for you as a viewer to be considered in all aspects of your life," Mersereau says, "whether you're using a personal device for your home life or for your business life."
Technology is a constant companion and the selling of it has become part of our pop culture.
Apple is now a retailer and music vendor that's dropped "computer" from its name. Microsoft briefly employed Jerry Seinfeld to star in inscrutable (but I thought pretty funny) ads with Bill Gates. (No truth to the rumor Cisco considered Seinfeld, but worried chief executive John Chambers wouldn't be cool with adjusting his undershorts a la Gates on national television.)
The slick Cisco ads, which will be broadcast across the globe, are only part of a campaign that has seen product placement on "CSI," "24," "Heroes" and sponsorship of NCAA basketball.
Yes, you'll be seeing plenty of Cisco in the coming months. But whether the humans in the human network respond is a question that might take years to answer.
___
(Mike Cassidy is a technology columnist for the San Jose Mercury News. Read his Loose Ends blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/Cassidy and contact him at mcassidy_at_mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5536.)
___
© 2008, San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.).
Visit MercuryNews.com, the World Wide Web site of the Mercury News, at http://www.mercurynews.com
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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