Dive Brief:
- Vine might seem like an unusual marketing venue for tech giant Cisco, but in an effort to reach tech influencers it's using the platform for a storytelling campaign.
- The six second videos will cover data, security, cloud and other technologies.
- The campaign's concept came from an internal contest looking for innovative communications and marketing ideas from Cisco employees.
Dive Insight:
"In the B2B space, the challenge is really to tell a complex story in an understandable way," Kirsten Chiala, digital content manager at Cisco's The Network, the company's technology news site, told AdAge. "At The Network, we are always looking for new ways to translate our technology and what Cisco makes possible, and bring it to life for our audience."
Chiala added, "We wanted to think outside the box in telling our most strategic and top-priority storylines. We've seen a lot of Vines in the consumer space, but not a lot in B2B."
Cisco had previously used Vine, but for industry stats and technical information rather than marketing. The storytelling campaign came from an interesting source – Cisco held a contest for innovative communications and marketing ideas from its employees. Employees can submit ideas, and those ideas are voted up, with the top ideas eventually going before a panel that funds one idea each quarter.