Sep. 22--Cisco. Cisco. Cisco. Cisco.

Cisco.

Get used to it. The networking giant is rolling out a new round of ads this week as part of its Human Network campaign. You know, Human Network -- as in you and me.

You'll see the ads on football games and the Weather Channel. On Web sites and on CNN. It will be part of the daily fire hose of promotional messages you dodge or absorb or ignore.

What do you mean, why? Why would a company best known for building switches and routers want you to get to know and love them? Isn't promoting the hidden guts of the Internet a bit like a city advertising its tap water?

That's the problem with us mere, non-marketing mortals. We don't get it. Companies today don't sell just products. They sell a brand. They want their names stamped in your brain the same way they stamp it on laptops and Web sites and software and yes, on switches and routers.

"Brand recognition means a lot," says Gartner analyst Joe Skorupa, who follows Cisco. "The whole 'Human Network' is to find ways to get into new markets, to be well-positioned, and also it's to get people conditioned to buy Cisco, to think Cisco."

Yes it is possible to get consumers to think warm and fuzzy about cold, hard tech. Remember Intel and the Bunny People (disco dancing clean room workers) and the Blue Man Group? And now consumers -- some anyway -- browsing at Fry's or Best Buy ask the question: Is Intel inside?

Cisco's

campaign, which features business warriors saving themselves from harried trips by using Cisco's high-end teleconferencing equipment, says something about the company and it says something about us.

About Cisco, the global marketing maneuvering says it's not the company it started out to be. Like many Silicon Valley successes, San Jose-based Cisco seeks to morph with the times and technology in order to find and conquer new markets. The company has had its eye on everyday consumers for years.

It bought home router-maker Linksys in 2003 and set-top box maker Scientific Atlanta in 2006. Getting you to know Cisco is a smart move for a company that might have grander designs on your home. (They want you to know them only so well. Company officials declined to discuss the campaign's cost.)

In fact, as I sat with Cisco chief marketing officer Susan Bostrom in her office last week, she pointed at the TelePresence system she uses to meet virtually with co-workers around the world and said such gizmos will be in homes before we know it.

"I think it's very clear that Cisco will be playing an important role in the consumer experience," Bostrom says.