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Flash-forward to early 1994 and the ascendance of switching. Switching
is easier, switching is cheaper, switching is faster than routing.
ATM, the miracle networking cure for multimedia applications,
is a switched technology. The MIS crowd says that in two years,
their networks will be converted to switching. While routing isn't
dead, routing is no longer the only game in town.
Cisco's position as router leader could eventually limit company
growth. Cisco's first move was to embrace the new technologies
by acquiring companies that had pioneered them - companies like
Crescendo and Kalpana, leaders in the small but explosive switching
market, and Lightstream, a top ATM supplier. But why would anyone
buy switches from the router king? Cisco had to expand its brand
promise yet again for this new market configuration.
Rather than redefine Cisco as a routing and switching company,
we decided to raise the brand to higher ground, out of the trap
of specific technologies to a true leadership position. Our objective
with this branding effort was to position Cisco as the Strategic
Partner for Networking.
Notice two things about this statement: first, we wanted to change
router leader to networking leader - to broaden the product association
that the Cisco brand brings to mind. Second, we wanted to change
the idea of Cisco as a vendor to a strategic partner - positioning
the company for that short list that many companies decide before
the purchase is even considered.
So we went out and interviewed a group of buyers and asked them
questions about what they really wanted, trying to find the hook
that would allow us to change customers' brand association from
router leader to strategic partner for networking.
And what we heard from the market was "These things should work
together." That was our hook: there was a need for a networking
leader that would make them work together.
So there was no clear leader in networking, just a constantly
changing panorama of technologies, standards and products which
don't always work together. ATM may be the hot technology today,
but these buyers had seen hot technologies before. The fact that
Cisco was dedicated to solving this problem, now with routers
and in the future with switches or whatever technology comes along,
gave it the right to claim strategic business partner status and
claim the leadership position.
Of course, this was our conclusion, but we still had to find out
if this new expanded brand definition could be communicated, whether
it was believable and whether it was clearly Cisco's to claim.
Advertising was designed to communicate that with Cisco products
and with Cisco IOS, you really can build that universally accessible,
completely connected, network of your dreams.
One headline read: "Remember when you were going to change the
world? Little did you suspect network incompatibility should cloud
your vision."
Another headline read: "Remember when you were going to link worlds
of information together? Little did you realize everyone would
be so alien."
Many of us know people who entered the field of networking - they
believed that it was all possible and it was going to create a
better world or at least a more rational organization. After years
of 3 am nights, project delays and unkept promises, Cisco was
making this dream possible, by becoming the networking standard.
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