Cisco's repositioning campaign reaches out to the individual consumer for the first time.
It's a $38-billion company with a touchingly simple ambition. Cisco wants to become a household name. Having sold over 80 million devices to consumers the world over, it no longer wants to be perceived as a boring company that only manufactures networking gear such as routers and switches.
The ambition may sound soft but for Cisco, it is serious business. A few months ago, the company launched a high-profile, $100-million global brand repositioning campaign. In a simultaneous launch with a few other countries -- including the UK, France, Germany, Italy and China -- the Indian campaign rolled out in February during the India-Australia cricket matches and will continue until end-July.
"Our business is more expansive than basic networking, yet the market at large doesn't understand that, and is not giving Cisco credit for all that it does beyond traditional networking," explains Naresh Wadhwa, president and country manager, India and Saarc, Cisco.
To ensure that consumers get the right message now, Cisco has taken a two-pronged approach to its communication: a global advertising campaign (devised by worldwide agency Ogilvy) and a new, more personalised company website.
The Indian campaign is using television commercials for maximum impact and cinema in key cities for local presence, and will later focus on online and mobile advertising. An audio theme is also being planned to drive brand recall and association.
The aim of the campaign isn't merely to drive traffic to the Cisco corporate website, but also to its Human Network -- an online platform featuring a mix of user-generated content including blogging, social-networking and wikis (a web-based group communication mechanism), that aims to demonstrate ways in which technology is uniting people.
"In a web 2.0 world, the network becomes more important than ever before and Cisco is poised to take advantage of it. [The Internet] is no longer just about the physical network; it is about the human network also," declares Marilyn Mersereau, senior vice president, corporate marketing, Cisco Systems.
Currently, Cisco's campaign is in the "entice" stage -- the period when there is curiosity about the brand among many who saw the logo for the first time during the cricket matches, according to Nupur Sharma, head, brand strategy and advertising, India and Saarc, Cisco. She says the campaign "has succeeded in achieving this objective since it got us the
visibility we needed".
The next stage is 'educating' the viewers. That involves telling the target audience more about Cisco, its products and mission, and directing them towards the website. The third stage will be 'engagement', Sharma explains.
Localised, regional language content is also being planned for the next stages, although Cisco officials decline to share details. The customisation makes sense: India is an important market for Cisco where it has already committed $1.1 billion. Moreover, the Asia-Pacific region contributed around 10 per cent to the company's sales in 2006-07. Of this,
analysts say, sales from India are in the region of $1 billion.
Besides, Cisco is now ready to go deeper in the domestic market -- beyond routers and switches. In retail stores, it sells thin-client architecture at the store level, thus making the network a platform.
At airports, it pushes data to the servers using digital signages.
Besides, Cisco's telepresence studios can be used to network with people (virtual meetings) around the world, explains Wadhwa.
"After establishing its leadership in the carrier and enterprise market, Cisco is now veering towards addressing the next big opportunity -- Indian consumers. This is not only a positioning shift but also led by new products and the acquisitions Cisco has done globally," says Alok Shende, practice head, Datamonitor.
The company has indeed changed over the years. In 2006, Cisco -- which is counted among the top 20 global brands -- acquired a new logo with its name printed in red and an updated version of its trademark, the Golden Gate Bridge image.
Moreover, its 100-plus acquisitions are aimed at catapulting it into the consumer electronics and entertainment market.
For instance, Cisco entered the consumer electronics business with the Linksys (wireless and Ethernet networking) acquisition in 2003, Sipura Technology (maker of Net phone products) and Kiss Technology (maker of network-based DVD and DVR players) in 2005, and Scientific-Atlanta (a cable set-top box maker) in 2006.
Linksys and Cisco IP phones already have a presence in the Indian market.
In fact, over the past few years, Cisco has sold over 200,000 IP phones across the country, albeit mostly to corporate buyers. Now, though, the home consumer angle will be emphasised. Wadhwa notes that under the repositioning exercise, it will now be overtly communicated that Linksys and Scientific-Atlanta are Cisco brands.
In India, Cisco is ensuring its corporate strategy keeps it in the consumer's line of vision. It has made strategic investments in gaming companies such as TerraPlay, IndiaGames, Exent and Emergent. And, after acquiring Navini Networks (a leader in the Mobile WiMAX space), it now plans to enter this space in India and emerging markets to drive broadband penetration.
The company also has a presence in healthcare management, and is collaborating with Satyam Computer Services for a new venture that will focus on optimising, deploying and managing integrated healthcare management solutions globally.
Whether doctors around the world converge over a telepresence meeting to address health issues or a small business association in Delhi meets over WebEx (another recent acquisition) to talk about trade laws, it is about people coming together using technology to achieve wonderful things, explains Mersereau, concluding: "We believe we can carry the strength and heritage of our brand into new businesses and new markets."
More than just networking
