Cisco ASR 1000 Case Analysis

Cisco Systems: Launching the ASR 1000 Series Router Using Social Media Marketing Rishi Kothari

CASE ANALYSIS Cohort – South End Team - 5

Business Context/Key Business Drivers Cisco Systems, Inc. was founded in 1984. Cisco has grown into one of the worlds most successful technology companies that designs, manufactures, and sells networking equipment, with reported sales of $39.5 Billion, with a net income of $8.1 billion. They are associated with being able to deliver the networking solutions for the Internet, Internet Video, collaboration and productivity improvements that Internet based technologies provided to individuals, companies and countries. The market was changing rapidly and the demands were rising for edge traffic handling. 

The workforce was becoming more mobile and distributed. People were traveling, telecommuting from home, or working from remote brand offices. More than 70% of corporations required increase in bandwidth with 43% requiring and increase of 20% in the next two years. Web 2.0 collaborative tools— including team and group collaboration applications such as TelePresence and WebEx, shared document storage applications, audio conferencing, video conferencing, and IP television (IPTV)—were becoming more widely accepted.

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Initiative Objectives/Benefits Keeping the trends and needs of their customers in mind. The new product launch after investing $250 Million and 5 years was the ASR1000 router. ASR 1000 was specifically designed to provide flexible, efficient and cost-effective delivery of complex services that included voice, video, data and mobility to the growing corporations and to engage the service providers. Cisco decided to use social media to launch the product and they do this to . Why Social Media and what are its Key benefits? Social media had swiftly become one of the most important trends in media evolution. The scope of Web 2.0 and social media, its reach is relevant to forecast the success of the marketing promotion.        

Employ only digital media channels and ―0‖ Spending on traditional channels. 10 % of all online traffic is on youtube.com 5 on 10 top websites are social. 1.5 Million Postings were made to blogs every day. Teaser Videos- Create and spread buzz. Chance of 2 way communication. Create the cool factor – show the fun side of Cisco. Facebook group to reach technical audience – help build long sustainable relationship with customers.

For the launch of the ASR 1000 router Cisco Systems uses a creative and a trend changing innovative seek and learn approach to using social media. The company had decided to avoid traditional push media methodology of TV and newspaper in marketing for the new product. The team had come to and conclusion to its efforts completely on digital marketing and social media to attract the attention of its target market. The case discusses Web 2.0 and Social Media which were the new trends and thus the launching strategy of the product involved social media and was aligned with the mantra that Cisco adopted to launch ―virtually, visually, virally and green‖. and the digital procedures engaged by the Cisco Systems marketing team to complete this impressive goal. Business marketers normally adopt a more serious and traditional approach to marketing its products but in this case Cisco had decided to fault that trend by exploring digital tools and social gaming avenues which its target client – the technical community – were increasingly frequenting. Initiative challenges 

The idea of promoting Cisco as a fun company and emphasizing on the cool factor was effective in promoting the product with funny videos it was not very clear how effective it was in generating additional interest in the product and how could we sustain it in the future.

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The approach of targeting all the possible social media platforms was important to ensure the success of an outrageous social media based promotion campaign. It was important free access to videos without copyright issues, so they could be shared and reused without any complications and reservations.

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One of the most important challenges cisco faced during the social media campaign was ensuring the widget works smoothly. The Social Media Widget was an Idea, which had never been used or tested. To ensure the embedded functionality worked required a lot testing.

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Back in the day Facebook was still in its growth stage and it was not targeted as a huge source to promote and share info. The hardest issue here was to grow its Facebook Community.

Results 

The launch of ASR 1000 Series was considered to be a great success based on reach and rich customer experiences. Based on online resources it is understood the social media campaign helped Cisco with significant savings amounting to a 6 figures amount compared to if they had used traditional means.

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Successfull creation and repositioning of their brand Image, Cisco was Cool.

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According to me Cisco managed to get the result as desired to a larger extent by involving Information Technology and Marketing together but the only point of concern was how to make it sustainable after the initial hype for the launch died down.

Relevance and Analysis – 

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In this case compared to some of the other cases Cisco was not adapting or following the industry trends and competition. They were embarking into unchartered territory and exploring implementation of technology, which was never done, and they had very limited idea on how to do it. They faced several challenges and made some similar mistakes we have seen in earlier cases. The widget was launched without proper testing and they had the campaign running without the key component working efficiently.

Based on the case itself and the "Attaining Social Maturity" article, what stage was Cisco at in this case and what is the basis for your assessment? Based on the article and the case itself I believe the Cisco is in the “Scaling and Optimizing Stage”.  Organization shows a shift toward growing and improving social applications.  Cisco has decided to be the first to do an all-digital and social media based advertising campaign. They are implementing most of the solutions to generate and develop customer interest for the first time.  The timing of the case lays a challenge of its own. It was a time when vast audiences were getting acquainted to the phenomenon of social networking and communication.  Social media was flourishing and proving to be an efficient and exciting way to engage consumers with brands and products. Their challenge lays whether this new approach would result in the kind of value proposition they want to create and communicate to their highly technical target audience. The ASR 1000 router needed serious publicity by convincing this technical audience for the approach to be justified and successful.  With the marketers still experimenting with the ways methods and modes of communication the end result was overwhelming success. Key learning’s for the case was, how to assess and market the product correctly. Cisco had the product, which would indirectly represent the growth and scope of social media. They took that and transformed not only how marketing was approached but also how they were perceived in the market place. Web 2.0 was not just about YouTube and Facebook; it was a resource with huge potential to tap into. Internet and Social Media has immense unexplored potential.

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Works Cited Li, C., & Bernoff, J. Attaining Social Maturity. In C. Li , & J. Bernoff, Groundswell, Expanded and Revised Edition: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. Boston, Massachusetts, USA: Harvard Business Review Press. Davis, L. (2008, October 04). How cisco tried to make routers sexy using social media. Retrieved from http://readwrite.com/2008/10/04/cisco_social_media Kullin. (2008, October 05). Social media case by http://www.kullin.net/2008/10/social-media-case-study-by-cisco/

cisco.

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Hibbard, Cassey. "How Social Media Helped Cisco Shave $100,000 Off a Product Launch." Social Media Examiner RSS. Social Media Examiner, 30 Aug. 2010. Web. 13 Feb. 2013. http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/cisco-social-media-product-launch/ Sawhney, Mohanbir 2011 Cisco Systems: Launching the ASR 1000 Series Router Using Social Media Marketing , Northwestern University.

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