I’ve made my way to the right place at the right time often enough to clock a great opportunity when it presents itself. So when the chance to help build Cisco’s in-house creative agency from the ground up came knocking, I answered. 

Eight years, two global brand campaigns and countless creative projects later, the results speak for themselves: Our little team won two In-House Agency of the Year Awards and Cisco was recently named the world’s most-valuable pure B2B brand for the fourth year in a row (Interbrand).

I’m an idea-hatcher. A question-asker. A brand storyteller. 

I translate tech-to-human, turning complex topics into relatable stories for real people (with real emotions). I make the complicated simple, the mundane interesting. I build bridges between business and creative teams to ensure work that nails the brief and actually addresses the market objective.

As a senior copywriter and narrative-focused creative director on the Global Brand team, I had the absolute privilege of working side-by-side with—and learning loads from—world-class creatives including Harry Cocciolo, Patrick Condo, Scott Habetz, Dennis Lim, Dave O’Hare, Andrew Reed and Rick Vargas, among others. Together, we brought Cisco’s purpose and products through interesting and surprising stories that resonate emotionally with audiences. 

Every manner of brand project came across my keyboard, from brand campaigns and big technology launches to global customer events. I’ve created stories about customers, social-impact initiatives, amazing employees and teams, corporate priorities and more. I can tackle any topic for any audience in any format. Versatility is one of my super powers. 

Some highlights include:

• Leading brand storytelling projects that feature Cisco’s technology sponsorships with the NFL, USGA, Live Nation, and Global Citizen, including an animated film spot with the highest video-completion rate (87%) ever measured on NFL.com.

• Showcasing Cisco’s purpose and CSR efforts through authentic stories about the company’s IT skills training, sustainability efforts and more.

• Writing or editing virtually every word on the Cisco.com homepage between 2022-2024.

• Leading a brand-language initiative as part of the larger “Cisco.com Reimagined” project to improve clarity and drive engagement across hundreds of priority Cisco.com pages while retaining the brand voice and personality. The results? A 190% increase in traffic to “How to buy” pages, a 50% increase in “click to chat” engagement and a 4x increase in requests for trials across networking pages.

• Creating themes and visual IDs for Cisco’s largest customer, partner and sales events with more than 20,000 live attendees.

• Bringing home two In-House Agency of the Year awards (ANA and IHAF), a Webby and two Summit Awards (for marketing excellence) from Cisco’s CMO.

Before that, I served as editor-in-chief for Executive Thought Leadership, where I led a small team that positioned Cisco’s c-suite execs as thought leaders and helped them shape industry conversations. I also had the pleasure of supporting former Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers on writing projects for several years. I received the Chairman’s Choice Award from Chambers for my contributions to Cisco’s corporate narrative.

I joined Cisco in 2001 as an editor for the award-winning iQ magazine, which highlighted the business benefits of techology solutions for non-technical executives. While I was editor-in-chief, iQ won the Custom Content Council’s Pearl Award for Best Overall Editorial.

I cut my teeth as a newspaper sportswriter and an editor for Longboard and Snowboard Life magazines.

Brand storytelling is my jam and I’d love to help you bring your story to life. Thanks for stopping by.

Regards,

Ewan Morrison