Cisco: Circle Story - Ad Analysis
AI Editor notes
Straight from the gut!!
“It's a classic, early-2010s B2B-trying-to-be-B2C brand film. Polished, clever, but a little lofty. The 'Internet of Everything' is textbook corporate jargon no normal person would ever use. The strategy is sound—make the invisible visible—but it feels like a GE or IBM ad. It's trying to sell a feeling of inevitable progress, and Cisco just happens to be the one powering it.”
Quick Summary
This ad's core achievement is making an invisible, complex concept—Cisco's network infrastructure—both tangible and emotionally resonant. It uses a simple, circular story to demonstrate that behind every modern convenience, from a smart home to a global supply chain, is the seamless connectivity that Cisco provides, effectively positioning the brand as the foundational layer of the future.
Executive Summary
Cisco's 'Circle Story' is a masterclass in simplification. In the early 2010s, as the 'Internet of Things' was transitioning from niche concept to mainstream buzzword, Cisco faced a fundamental marketing problem: how to advertise a product that is essentially invisible, complex, and unglamorous network infrastructure? The answer, delivered by Goodby Silverstein & Partners, was not to explain the technology, but to show its effect through a universally understood narrative structure: a cumulative tale.
The ad borrows its rhythm and cadence from the nursery rhyme 'This Is the House That Jack Built,' creating an immediate sense of familiarity. This structure allows the spot to build from an incredibly simple, personal moment—a girl pouring milk for her cat—to a global, industrial scale, and back again. It's a clever device that makes the immense scope of the 'Internet of Everything' feel manageable and logical. The narrative connects the dots for the viewer, showing how a smart pet door is part of the same ecosystem as a driverless car, a data center, a wind turbine, and a fully automated supply chain. Each step in the chain is a proof point for Cisco’s vision.
The execution is seamless. The Setup introduces the personal stakes within a warm, aspirational home. The Turn happens when the man leaves for work, and the scale of connectivity explodes outward, demonstrating the B2B applications that are Cisco’s bread and butter—fleet management, smart cities, data security, and energy grids. The Payoff is the elegant closing of the loop, as the global network's efficiency results in the simple, personal act of the man buying milk for his daughter's cat. This brings the story home, framing Cisco's massive technological prowess not as an end in itself, but as a means to serve simple human needs. The final reveal of the Cisco logo and the tagline, 'Tomorrow starts here,' lands as a confident summary of the preceding visual argument. The team's key takeaway should be that when selling a complex, abstract benefit, anchoring it in a simple, human-scale story is the most powerful strategy.
Theme Keywords
Brand Position
Cisco is the intelligent, secure, and essential network foundation that connects everything, powering a more efficient and responsive world.
Brand Archetype
The Sage: Positioned as the wise and knowledgeable entity that understands and enables the complex connections of the modern world.
Creative Game Plan
Illustrate the invisible power of Cisco's network by tracing a single thread of consequence through an intricate, cyclically connected world.
Diagnosis: Issues & Solutions
Primary Issue: Brand Distinctiveness
The Problem:
The story, while beautifully told, is somewhat generic for the tech category. A viewer could easily swap the Cisco logo at the end with IBM, Intel, or even Google and the ad would still make sense. It successfully sells the category ('Internet of Everything') but doesn't build a strong, ownable link to Cisco until the final five seconds.
The Solution:
Integrate Cisco's ownable brand assets earlier or more organically. This could have been a subtle visual of the Cisco network interface on a screen, or a visual motif based on their logo's 'bridge' design appearing throughout the connected moments, creating a visual thread that belongs only to them.
Secondary Issue: Emotional Connection
The Problem:
The ad is intellectually charming and satisfying but lacks a strong emotional core. It prioritizes cleverness over feeling. The characters are archetypes in a chain of events rather than people we connect with on a deeper level.
The Solution:
Focus one of the vignettes on a more potent emotional moment. Instead of the dog simply waking the woman, perhaps the connected tech allows the family to share a moment despite being apart, or solves a more relatable, stressful family problem, grounding the benefit in a more powerful human experience.