Keep Cisco Safe

How do you get people to pay attention to cyber security? Center the users and rethink the paradigm.

Additional credits

Data is only as safe as its weakest link: human error. So how do you engage over 120,000 employees around the globe and educate them on ways to Keep Cisco Safe? This was the challenge we faced, and we met it with a deeply researched and multi-faceted communications campaign centered around personifying cyber-threats as mischievous little monsters lurking in the shadows.

Campaign
Design System
Digital Experience
Environmental Design
Motion/Video

Researching to find out what actually works

Corporate trainings are infamously unengaging and dry. When Cisco approached us to help with a messaging campaign around the importance of cybersecurity and data protection, we knew the same old shadowy figures over screens in dark rooms wouldn’t get the job done. So, rather than recycle tired tropes, we dug deep into wide-ranging creative research and what does work to educate and change behavior. We found that visuals and messaging have to be eye-catching, intriguing, and that a range of emotions can be engaged beyond generic but vaguely defined fear.

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Bringing cybersecurity threats to life, without the cliches

We conceptualized a campaign that grabs employees’ attention through colorful, eye-catching monsters that personify individual data security threats. To boost engagement, these monsters are animated and infused with mischievous personalities. In all, we created 11 monsters. An international team of character designers, 3D artists, and animators helped bring them to life for video and motion applications. The positive response from employees was immediate. And huge.

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One of the most successful internal campaigns in Cisco’s history

All the attention generated by the monsters was channeled to an intranet site where employees completed gamified activities. Through simplification and gamification, the entire training experience was designed to be approachable and user-friendly. The site linked into single sign-on and back-end systems for tracking of progress and campaign metrics.
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The monsters starred in a multi-faceted campaign that included life-sized displays, videos, posters, giveaways, stickers, window-clings, and even toys used as incentives. One video featuring the characters has generated more views than any other internal video at Cisco ever, and the campaign in general is one of the most successful internal campaigns in Cisco’s history.

Immediate results and better positioned for the future

The campaign was such a success that Cisco has made the training mandatory company wide and has since expanded its role into crisis ops around cybersecurity and ongoing Keep Cisco Safe communications. The Keep Cisco Safe campaign transformed how Cisco talks about cybersecurity and educates its employees on an absolutely critical topic. By shifting the paradigm, we helped grab attention and convey a message employees are predisposed to be disinterested in. Ultimately, the result is a Cisco that is safer from cybersecurity threats, better positioned to confront those challenges when they do arise, and now has a framework for more effective training and messaging going forward.

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