Cisco Changes Everything With New Branding Campaign

A corporate brand should speak volumes about a company’s mission and differentiation and should be the first thing that comes to a customer’s mind when they think about a company. It’s not just the imagery (though that is certainly important), but rather the feelings and associations that it elicits. Contrary to popular belief, B to B brands are just as important as B to C brands, although executions and targets are different. Today Cisco Systems CSCO -0.79% is launching a global brand campaign supporting new, corporate positioning.

Cisco Systems is positioning themselves as the “global networking leader and technology visionary of tomorrow.” The company knows they need to strongly link networking leadership with being a technology visionary. Cisco intends to drive that home with a new, omni-channel branding campaign. After getting a close look at the new branding campaign, titled appropriately, “There’s Never Been a Better Time,” I believe it is directionally right and could take them where they want to go. It’s a new, exciting era for the company with new management and new opportunities and I believe that now they’ve finally got the right brand expression and execution to represent that for the buyers they want to attract.

A campaign of “Technology Optimism”

Global digitization is disrupting the way the world conceives business models, products, and services. Cisco Systems believes that although technology can be a driver of disruption, it also holds key solutions— in their words, by connecting everything, they can “make anything possible.” There may be some horrible things going on around the world, but Cisco wants to show how tech can positively impact this world, using an optimistic tone. Millennials will love this and I don’t think it will alienate others.

Cisco’s new branding campaign focuses on a diverse offering of customer stories—real world examples of how Cisco’s technology is transforming and improving people’s lives, industries and, in some cases, entire countries.

As I have written before, Cisco’s corporate social responsibility (CSR ) efforts have been a mission of the company throughout their 30-year existence, and this new brand campaign focuses on bringing these personal success stories to the forefront. These highlighted “conversations” between Cisco and their customers, partners, employees, and influencers all seem to point towards one thing—despite hardships, people seem to be excited for the future, and they truly believe that technology is a force for good in the world. These “Technology Optimists” are both the driving force behind, and the target audience of the campaign.