Had this CSCO article from WSJ e-mailed to me this AM:
Advertising
Spread the Web: Cisco
Reaches Beyond Techies
By SUEIN HWANG
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Cisco Systems Inc. has decided that everyone is finally ready.
Two years after launching its first television ads featuring the slogan "Are you ready?" the maker of computer-networking equipment is taking the next big step to convince the country it's the ultimate Web guru.
"We've been asking people are you ready for the new Internet economy, and now people are telling us they are ready ... and they're asking how to proceed," says Jere Brooks King, vice president of marketing communications.
Cisco's answer is a Web portal and glossy print magazine that target traditional not-com executives more familiar with a golf putter than a computer router. Titled iQ, for Internet Quotient, the magazine and portal -- to be launched Tuesday -- focus on showing how companies can integrate the Web into their operations, such as an online sales site for a book retailer. The venture marks Cisco's most ambitious effort to date to reach beyond its traditional technocentric audience.
In starting iQ, Cisco executives are betting that the Internet phenomenon will fully transform the business of electronic plumbing into a glamorous must-have product. "In years past, networks and all that equipment have often been managed and implemented simply by technical departments," says Ms. King. "But business executives now view the Internet as an enabler to solve their business problems, not something that simply connects phones and computers."
The magazine and portal bear little resemblance to the company's earlier, geekier media offerings. For example, a recent table of contents for Packet, a Cisco-produced magazine for customers, contains a gaggle of technology acronyms that would stymie any English major: "Implementing QoS for Packet Telephony," "Gigabit Ethernet Meets ATM" and "IONA Plans Ahead."
In contrast, the table of contents of the inaugural issue of iQ is free of techno-jargon, with the exception of an occasional "e-commerce." The magazine provides highlighted definitions of terms like "Intranet" ("an internal company network based on Internet technology") and "portal" (a "site that provides users with links to specific sets of information"). IQ even contains a lifestyle section, featuring Quebec City highlights and a list of the world's most expensive pens.
Still, most of iQ revolves around stories of companies that have successfully integrated the Internet into various facets of their business -- with Cisco playing a key role in most of them. In the cover story on Honeywell International Inc.'s Internet strategies, for example, Cisco helps Honeywell's top brass decide which online projects to fund. In another story, Lands' End Inc. employed a Cisco product to help customers using the online catalog easily reach human assistance.
Cisco makes no bones about promoting its services in the magazine, which will be sent free to "qualified business decision makers" such as vice presidents, directors or systems integrators. The names will be drawn from Cisco's prospective-customer lists and some of those of Hachette Filipacchi Magazines, a unit of French conglomerate Lagardere SCA, which will help publish the title. The magazine will come out every two months and is expected to have no more than 25% in advertising from Cisco's customers, partners and others interested in reaching iQ's target audience.
While Cisco executives are hoping for an eventual circulation of 100,000, they stress that the magazine is just one component of a much larger effort that revolves around the new iQ portal. In offering how-to guides, online tutorials and other business strategies, Cisco hopes to turn the Web site into the online equivalent of the Internet consulting services it already offers.
"The content in the [magazine] is short and sweet, to grab people's attention, get them interested in Cisco as a trusted adviser," says Matthew Rausenberger, senior manager of Internet marketing. "The portal can take people deeper into the layers of case studies and explore a variety of subjects."
Cisco has lots of competition in its efforts to become the expert of choice on Internet issues. In 1998, when many technology companies still advertised in lesser-known technical magazines, Cisco took a different tack when it launched TV ads glamorizing the Web with the slogan "Are you ready?"
Although the vast majority of TV watchers had never seen, let alone purchased, a router or any other networking product, Cisco's brass were convinced that the Internet would break through to the mainstream of society. They were right; Cisco's ties to the Web helped its stock price double since August 1999, even after factoring in a recent downturn in its shares.
Now, nearly every technology company, from Microsoft Corp.'s "The Business Internet" to Sun Microsystems Inc.'s "We're the dot in .com," has stormed the airwaves with glamorous ad campaigns positioning themselves as the ultimate Internet expert. Amid the roar, Cisco's marketing experts determined last year that the company still needed to do more to reach the kind of the top-level decision makers it's trying to attract.
With iQ, Cisco's executives say they are taking their case one step further than its rivals. "Cisco isn't just saying it's associated with the Internet. We really walk that talk," Ms. King says, borrowing a phrase from Cisco Chief Executive John Chambers. "This is a very tangible example of how we're extending our expertise to business executives." |
