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The Nortel tax relief plan

By Bo Gowan May 15, 2008 7:07 am EDT

If you happen to subscribe to the print edition of the San Jose Mercury News or the Wall Street Journal, you would have seen one of the below ads in this morning’s edition:

If you do type “the cisco energy tax” into your search engine, you are likely to find your way to this page - www.nortel.com/saveenergy - which details “The Nortel Tax Relief Plan” and allows you to quickly see potential energy savings for Nortel versus Cisco equipment in a variety of network deployment scenarios. 

While the direct and controversial tone of these ads get your attention, what is even more interesting to me is the fact that these ads were made to directly support a message that has grown from the bottom up.  Traditional advertising campaigns almost always “flow down,” with marketing, sales and the rest of the company aligning to the latest advertising message or slogan.  These ads, however, support a message that has bubbled up from customer conversations, blogs and tradeshow demos.

The anchor of the campaign is not an $80 million ad buy — but a new business analysis tool (the Nortel Energy Efficiency Calculator), a few blog posts, and a dialogue on energy efficiency that Nortel can win. 

Take a look at the ads, go to the new website, and check out YouTube.  Then let me know what you think of these ads and of the direct “grass roots” tactics Nortel is using to get out the message on the Cisco energy tax.

 

Categories: Commentary, Enterprise, Nortel News
Tags: Trackbacks (2)

Trackbacks/Pings

  1. […] efforts. As such, today is a pretty cool day at Nortel — as the company begins to shout from the rooftops about how its product portfolio is leaps and bounds more energy efficient than those of rival Cisco […]

    May 15th, 2008 at 9:41 am from Nortel to Cisco: ‘Tax this’ « Bloom 2.0

  2. […] May 15, 2008 · No Comments From the Nortel Buzzboard. Bo Gowan shows the ads from the Mercury News and WSJ that ran in today’s paper then adds his p… […]

    May 15th, 2008 at 5:42 pm from More on the “Cisco Energy Tax” Campaign. « The Cisco Energy Tax Blog

Comments

  1. The gloves are off! Go NORTEL! I’m sure these ads will OPEN the eyes of CIO’s and IT decision makers!

    May 15th, 2008 at 8:36 am by Sabir Shaikh

  2. Very cool tactic to cut through the clutter. Looking forward to seeing the industry’s reaction…

    May 15th, 2008 at 9:08 am by Rich

  3. Very Cool…Way to go NT. Sticking up for yourselves! Kick some tail!

    May 15th, 2008 at 9:20 am by Lar

  4. Bo - I think this specific marketing tactic is brilliant,because everyone knows or at least is most likely to think of Cisco at the top of their head when making an association with networking equipment,so how does a company like Nortel try to win mindshare with the odds stacked against them?

    It’s simple don’t try to be another company that also offers networking equipment when it is clear that the number 1 networking company in CTO’s minds is Cisco,but try to be another networking company with a twist,one that singles out a very important aspect,allowing the company (Nortel)to create a unique asociation about networking equipment(energy consumption and the ultimate cost of running those networks)in an effort to win some mindshare among CTOs out there.

    This is a strategy taken right out of a book I read called “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing” which covers strategies on how to market and create unique associations to win mindshare with the desired targeted audience.

    http://blog.kowalczyk.info/articles/22-marketing-laws.html

    bravo to the Nortel marketing people on this one.

    May 15th, 2008 at 12:56 pm by Bill Stock

  5. From the WSJ ad: “For the average business, that adds up to millions of watts of power across your network every year.” Sorry, but that statement doesn’t make any sense–did they instead mean, “millions of watt-hours of energy across your network every year”, or “millions of watts of power.[period]”? Yes, it’s a pet project of mine to point it out when people confuse the concepts of ‘power’ and ‘energy’ :)

    Still, it’s great to see energy savings getting focus!

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:31 pm by Pedantic

  6. Lets not forget about all the counterfeit cisco gear that china has been deploying and all of cisco’s gold and platinum partners that have been distributing this gear because of the profit margin that exists when pricing the overpriced cisco gear against the backdoor embedded counterfeit chinese equipment. The DoD, MIL, FBI, DHS, financial sectors and a wide range of unknown recipients have been deploying this gear since 2004. The estimates are totalling near 100 million in gear deployed in US/Canada so far and counting. See this reference:
    http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread350381/pg1

    Also, to comment on this blog article, I am currently working with one of nortel’s vendors (verizon) and they are designing a cs1000MG install at a facility im working at. They have chosen to use cisco 3560’s as the ELAN / TLAN switches for this install. I am frustrated at teh overpriced, over-rated, non-performing cisco switch they’re installing based on profit / cost over a much better performing, future investment ERS 55xx series. Shame on verizon.

    May 15th, 2008 at 3:09 pm by Aaron S.

  7. Wow! This is compelling. Hopefully this opens up peoples eyes before they make a decision without considering these facts. Saving you money is one thing but doesn’t Nortel outperform Cisco routers to?

    May 15th, 2008 at 3:31 pm by Jason

  8. Get more on the “Cisco Energy Tax” at this site

    http://energytouch.wordpress.com/

    It’s filled with links to everything being said on the topic.

    May 15th, 2008 at 5:50 pm by MKempell

  9. @ #5 Jason
    Yes, Nortel does outperform Cisco too. In fact they do highlight that at the bottom of the nortel.com/saveenergy page. 20X more throughput is crazy!

    May 15th, 2008 at 9:14 pm by RW

  10. Yeah it really is a great campaign. Well done marketeers.

    May 16th, 2008 at 5:46 am by DenEl

  11. Well Done Nortel Marketing Department. After seeing the Customer Executive testimonial TV campaign, I was worried that the new marketers just took a page from the old marketers. After seeing the full court press by your Bloggers and the thought provoking Ad Campaign that takes the battle directly to the door of an apparent weakness in Cisco’s kingdom, I’m now hopeful that Nortel has learned how to promote the “sizzle” … along with a sound product of course.
    I’m still not satisfied though. I’m looking forward to see Nortel taking the fight up another few notches in the near future.
    Good Luck! A healthy marketplace needs to justify why Cisco has a monopoly on mindshare. Let the debate begin.

    May 17th, 2008 at 5:41 pm by Armchair QB

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