Wasn’t this the tag line of Ci$co Marketing around 5 years ago?
38 replies (most recent on top)
Lipstick on a pig is still a pig. What a waste of $.
Cis$co btw is doing very well right now. They transitioned to a cloud-centric world quite nicely. Makes me think they made the right moves 5 years ago when they kept star talent (such as their current leader) and let go all of their veteran B and C players to go work for potential competitors.
Does SI sort of look like an Ewok?
Can’t sue for that one but leaders should be aware of this phenomena. So while SI (and other leaders) puked out some plagiarized marketing campaign, they should know this impacts their workforce and perception. If it wasn’t for Glassdoor or this site, another company would think riverbed employees are clueless and would ignore their resumes.
Can you sue a company for tarnishing your reputation as a result of sh-- leadership creating a negative perception of the employees?
Is that by any chance a London publication? Well done ol chap! Carry on!
We are getting on the front page of the Financial Times.
Surely that's a cheap way of marketing, using a relevant medium targeting the platform which our customers use most.
A calling card in a phonebox would be more useful. At least we expect to be f---ed that way
Our leaders are as useful as a broken deeldo
I can't wait for the holidays to roll around when SI comes up with the brilliant idea to send out Christmas cards to customers saying they've donated money to the Human Fund in their name. Or better yet, just rebrand Riverbed as The Human Fund and start multiple GoFundMe pages.
This makes me laugh. Riverbed management and marketing are seriously delusional if they think this slogan/campaign has any measurable effect on the way RB sells any of its products.
Not feeling any better after today’s townhall meeting - more of the same BS. I guess leadership doesn’t monitor these boards or they just ignore them
Sales/SE, CS, Marketing and Product leadership all have no idea what to do. Sales continues to provide strategy and continues to “try things out” to see what sticks. SE leaders are playing hide and go seek and pretending to producing results when their overall skill sets are dated and basic. Customer Success is a misnomer because it’s just Tech Support and PS nothing more. Product leadership (SCBU specifically) are just old bums who hides their stink well. And Marketing, clueless as hell and lack the fundamentals of modern marketing approaches.
Given this this 5-way mess, what can we expect? For me, I’d expect resignations out of these people but probably won’t happen because they do not want to face the stark reality that their time has passed and that they lack the apptitude to modernize their skills.
I hope your next big things comes soon. It’d be nice if you were able to stop “helping” Riverbed with your “good” marketing ideas.
I did my job. Looking forward to my next big thing.
SI needs to chime up here ... where’s he at? Under a rock?
So.......how do the products actually create these deeper human experiences? Is the company going into instant messaging or social media or something?
Didn’t even know we changed our marketing strategy, again! Found these quotes from SI’d marketing post:
“It’s time to put humans at the center of digital transformation. “
we’re they not already? Unless there’s a fleet of commander data’s running around, this message doesn’t mean anything.
“Let’s create deeper human connections.”
What the heck does this mean? Sounds like Ashley Madison or a 1-800 psychic center tag line - total amateur comment
Let’s start a retail revolution for humans.
again, what does this mean? actual retailers doesn’t even know how to revolutionize their own stores. There are some neato tech to enhance the store expertise but nothing revolutionary - besides, riverbed wouldn’t be providing a lot of the actual (visible) portions of this change because we’re infrastructure
Let’s inspire every one of your users to do more than they thought humanly possible.
sounds like you want people to do more for the same or less. SI don’t use the word “inspire” in a phrase where “force or coerce” can also be used in the same context.
Didn’t want to watch the video, I’m sure it’s filled with vague, ambiguous and misleading garbage
We have senior directors who’s job is to send weekly f---in emails and setup meetings ... literally that’s all they do. Now that’s some human experience I’d like to partake in. I’m sure there are other broken d---os that get paid well but they better at hiding.
SI back on the ganja again. What can we expect when SI learned about “the cloud” 2 years ago. Ex-cisco’s are a bunch of Neanderthals, their only skill is b---s---ting TB but I guess that has fallen by the wayside.
The lard bags at the top, and I mean all of them, know they stink but can’t find gigs. As mentioned numerous times before, get rid of mid to senior management and replace them with engineering and let the people who get sh-- done, well, get sh-- done. We’ll keep PM just because we him to make calls to TB.
It's so crazy that Riverbed is still not getting the tone of messages right. Shameful with all the money they spent. I have no faith in this company, it is a wreck. Time to put us out of our misery?
If you don't like this message don't worry about it. It will change again a few months. Keeps the CMO relevant.
This is just one of the videos we will do. Once customers are warm and fuzzy after this, we will roll out the other tech videos selling value around visibility and sdwan and wanopt. Step by step. Best we can do with the budget and talent we have. You are welcome to apply. If we get someone from outside it is a minimum $700k salary spend at SVP level, even if we trick them on stocks and revenue sharing.
@YDlb2GP-2ggj The empty marketing slogan and message could also be applied to selling windshield wiper fluid or shoelaces. We are a technology company. The message doesn't resonate internally and will not resonate with the audience we're selling to.
If you're looking for group-think, have the CEO pitch this message in-house (as he did) and watch all the heads nod. If you're looking for an honest assessment, listen to folks who can respond in anonymity. Like us.
Which team? Yes could use a change.
Do you want a job? All of our good people keep quitting.
I just wrote a bot that will keep hitting that website and video from 3 aws instances. Is this bad?
There are more hits on layoff.com/riverbed-technology compared to riverbed.com
Just watched that video - wonder who is the target audience. These kinds of ads only work for powerful brands, not for acquiring net new customers. Anyway let’s hope for the best.
Before rushing to judgment I invite you to watch the fantastic video put together by our excellent marketing team. It really touches on what the Human Experience is all about. Humans need a purpose. And fighting hunger and poverty, along with caring for our environment are among the noblest of purposes of the Human Experience.
Leadership is stacked with ex-Cisco
We don’t have a lot of budget, so we reuse Cisco marketing blueprints and just follow it. Perhaps time to change the font on the company logo again
Human experience??? What a load of B.S. Isn't the brand team supposed to be creative and innovative? Seems they are just as lazy as the Sr. Exec's.
Sell something, very hard when nobody wants it!
@YDlb2GP-1kde -- Who cares?????? Go sell something!!!!!!
So what’s the difference between Human vs Digital experience?
The email from the big cheese PM was absolute garbage. I really, really hope he's not trying to pitch that to customers. We're not saving the world, we're selling technology. The fluff is worthless, never going to sell unless we have a REAL message and REAL products behind it.
Let’s enjoy the marketing while it lasts. Looks a lot like a pivot to SCentral.
The amount of money and resources spent on these marketing campaigns is nuts! All for a corny tag-line. Money would be better spent on new technology and improving the existing product set!
I think EVERY company has had a go at this marketing angle by now. No wonder we’re shedding key employees and losing business.