Cisco invests $150m for new ad campaign

SAN JOSE, California: Cisco Systems Inc., the world's largest maker of equipment that directs Internet traffic has launched its largest-ever global advertising campaign. It expects to spend $100 million to $150 million this year on a print and television ad campaign that targets markets in which Cisco sees strong growth potential, including security, storage networking, voice and wireless.

"The point is to position Cisco beyond routers and switches into these new growth markets," Marilyn Mersereau, Cisco vice president of corporate marketing, said in an interview. "There's no clear leader in any of these markets and they're burgeoning, multibillion dollar markets."

Routers and switches, which direct network traffic, account for the bulk of Cisco's sales. The campaign -- which carries the tag line "This is the Power of the Network. Now." and will debut with eight-page newspaper inserts -- was developed by Ogilvy & Mather, which is owned by WPP Group Plc, the world's largest advertising group. Ogilvy was hired by Cisco last September.

The campaign launches on Tuesday in the United States and is scheduled to roll out to Canada, the UK, Germany, Italy, Japan and China in the spring. The eight-page insert will appear in Tuesday's editions of such newspapers as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post, Mersereau said.

Ads also will air on prime-time television on such shows as Fox's "24," NBC's "West Wing" and CBS's "60 Minutes," and appear in such magazines as BusinessWeek and Fortune, and online at such Web sites as Discovery.com and CNN.com, she said.

The campaign represents the third phase in Cisco's global branding strategy, following a 1998 campaign about the power and relevance of the Internet and a 2000 campaign about how businesses can use the Internet to meet their goals, the company said. The campaign also will feature a website, offering case studies, return-on-investment tools, three-dimensional product views, seminars and scheduled events.

© Reuters