Maybe Xerox should consider leasing its next logo instead of buying it. Isn’t that supposed to be the prudent thing to do when you know you’re going to want a new one in just a few years? Which has more or less been the story with this company since 1994. Prior to that Xerox had the same logo for 26 years. But prior to that, Xerox had a lot of things.
Like a growth trajectory and stock price that made it a charter member of the “nifty fifty”, along with a couple of exceptionally good advertising agencies. One, Papert, Koenig, Lois, is mostly remembered today for having the dubious distinction of being the first ad agency to go public, but it was once quite a respectable shop. And the other, was the New York office of Needham, Harper & Steers, which under the stewardship of Lois Korey and Allen Kay, gave us (and Xerox) the Super Bowl’s first blockbuster TV spot. (Brother Dominic’s “It’s a miracle” beat Apple’s “1984″ to the punch by 7 years.) Not to mention, the first national exposure of talents like Tom Thomas. But that was then; this is now.
Now, to be fair (hey, there’s a first time for everything) the company’s original business ain’t what it used to be. But having a name with the stature of Xerox, you’d think by now they would have accomplished something other than becoming the best thing to happen to the corporate identity world since the invention of computerized kerning.
However, that would require something that probably doesn’t come easily to a company that made its name making copies: Novel thinking.
The only thing you left out, Mark was Xerox paid a branding firm real money for the incredible insight of changing xerox to lower case. Wow! I can recommend that! Doesn’t quite stand up to the insight of “Got Milk?” but brilliant none the less, eh? Imagine presenting that the Board of Directors. “Damn, if at&t can write a big check for lowering their cases, so can we.
But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s test it on some … DWP.”