They're small, so this issue I'm giving you two makeovers for the price of one.
The “Gotcha Gang” of readers who think my makeovers are too copy-heavy are surely going to pounce on the first one.
As you can see, it's all copy. No photo, no logo, no drawing, no nothin'.
There's not much room for both arresting graphics and a meaningful copy story in a two-column-by-7-inch ad in The Wall Street Journal. And besides, a terabit network router doesn't exactly make for sexy graphics.
But then, to make the Gotcha Gang happy, I've done a second version with almost no copy. Just a brisk, lean reminder of Juniper's current superiority over Cisco, pointing to the Web site address.
Which is better? You decide. Do a split-run test in your head.
The original Juniper Networks ad you see here appeared in the top left corner of page 2 of the Journal, a choice position. Although it was not a major ad expenditure for this $600 million company, it did offer Juniper an opportunity both to build its image in the eyes of stock investors as a scrappy David beating up on a Goliath (Cisco, the high-end router market leader) and at the same time to troll for prospective users who have deep pockets.
Instead, the company used the space to present an obscure, sophomoric sneer at Cisco in cartoon form.
Stop! Before you read any further, take a look at Juniper's ad and see what you make of it at first glance.
Two guys looking at something, right? The copy in the balloons is fairly readable. One guy is saying, “Wow, Stan! A Cisco Router from the mid-'90s. Ever seen anything like this before?” And Stan is replying, “Hey, this is the same one our company just bought.”
In the background we glimpse a dirigible and a Wright Brothers airplane, and a banner saying “Technology Through the Ages.”
OK, it's coming into focus. The two guys are touring an exhibit of quaint, outdated technology. And the exhibit they're looking at is a picture of a woefully obsolete Cisco network router. (We can't see the picture, which we are viewing from the back. I wish I could, so I could see what a network router looks like. It must be a painting, because we can see the spotlights shining down on the front of the canvas.)
Above the cartoon is the company's slogan, “Juniper Your Net.”
And that's it.
First of all, it strains credibility to ask us to believe that Stan's company has just spent $500,000 or more on an “antique” network router that hasn't been improved by Cisco in more than three years, despite fierce competition in the field.
It would have made more sense if he were saying, “Hey, this is the same one our company has.” That would suggest that the company had bought it in the '90s, when it was state of the art. But now it's become outdated, and the firm hasn't been able or willing to invest in upgrading or replacement.
So why bother to try to improve on a cartoon that isn't worth much to start with? It's just a sophomoric, sarcastic sneer at the competition, with no news and no benefit.
And what kind of image-building is this? Does this really look like the advertising of a nifty, sophisticated high-tech company?
Too bad, because actually it has a great story to tell.
Juniper Networks was one of the wonder stocks during the recent Wall Street bubble. If you had invested $10,000 in Juniper in May of 2000, by July of the following year it would have been worth $250,000.
Since then the company valuation has sunk back again to a more realistic level. But Juniper is still a feisty, growing $600 million company giving Cisco a run for the money.
Cisco still has a commanding market share, about 70% vs. about 30% for Juniper and others. But it's a seesaw race. Sometimes Cisco gains faster, sometimes Juno.
And Juniper started leaping ahead early last year when it introduced its mighty terabit core router, the T640, fondly nicknamed Gibson. It was four times faster than the competition!
So even though it's no longer news, the approach in my first makeover is to dramatize this advantage in a simulated news article, what has often been called a “reader ad,” describing a T640 case history. It tells the story of the adoption of the T640 by the world's largest broadband services provider, a pretty impressive claim.
No pretense of award-winning copywriting here. There are times when strategy is more important than style. I cobbled the copy together from Juniper's own press releases and supplemented it with a little bit from other sources. But it would be engrossing bedtime reading for a CEO or corporate financial officer being asked to plunk down half a million smackers or more for each of these things. And by sticking carefully to Juniper's own words, I avoid making embarrassing technical boo-boos (I hope).
If one of Juniper's desires had been to have its ad needle its big brother competitor, note that my Korea KT version sticks the needle into Cisco in five places:
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By noting in the subhead that Juniper's new core router is four times faster than Cisco's fastest.
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By implying with the subhead “Why Juniper Instead of Cisco?” that the world's largest broadband service provider prefers Juniper to Cisco.
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By jabbing at Cisco with the subhead “Trumps Cisco at Its Own Game”…
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…and with the supporting copy which follows.
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By spelling out in the copy that Juniper is four times faster than Cisco and at a cheaper price.
My other version simply billboards a reminder of Juniper's superiority over Cisco and leads logically into the Web site address.
So what do you think? Which of the three versions would be most likely to result in that one-order-per-million circulation which is probably all that would be needed to repay the cost of the ad several times over?
THOMAS L. COLLINS was co-founder and first creative director of Rapp & Collins and is co-author with Stan Rapp of four books on marketing.
He is currently an independent marketing consultant and copywriter based in Manhattan.
If you see a direct response ad that you think is crying out for a makeover, clip it out and send it (unfolded, if possible) to me at 250 E. 40th St., #40B, New York, NY 10016. To e-mail comments and opinions: thomas.l.collins@verizon.net.
