Looking for someone other than itself to pat its back, Cisco pitched a story on its new comic strip character-based advertising campaign for its security products to no less than four Network World editors this week. Cisco says the animated campaign is a departure for the company, which usually likes to chronicle the foibles of a bumbling fictional journalist (gee, we’ll let that one roll off our backs); or overly-dramatize an upcoming router or data center launch.
But at a time when rivals are ditching comic strips for more serious and sober campaigns during stressful economic times, Cisco is choosing to inject some superhero fun into the downcast industry. Called ‘The Realm,’ the campaign features four superhero characters “assigned to combat a new era of cyber criminals in an uncertain world,” according to the pitch from both Cisco’s internal and external PR agents:
We’d like to pre-brief you on the second episode scheduled for March 15 release and let you know how Cisco is empowering users when security is needed more than ever, at home, in the office and in between – wherever people connect.
Uh, no thanks. We’ll pass on that second episode “pre-brief.” Sounds like a spoiler. I’ll just sit at my docking station with my kids and some popcorn on Sunday and anxiously await the next episode of ‘The Realm.’
But good luck with the campaign. ZAP! POOF! BAM!!!!
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