Xerox 2.0

The new Xerox identity has drawn mixed responses. From being called a cricket-ball (that was perhaps myself) to something out of a 3D virtual gaming platform, but this one definitely beats them all.

According to the blog ChasingGoogle and fellow brand connoisseur OmarKassim.com, the new Xerox brandmark actually seems to have borrowed very heavily from the national flag of Kyrgyztan. Not Borat’s Kzakhistan, but another-stan. Xerox meets the Kyrgyz Republic.

Clearly, Xerox is signaling change. A revolution, well almost.

Conceived in 1906, it was called The Haloid Company, renamed to the now-commonly-used ‘verb’ Xerox in 1961. Concurrently, was the conception of the tagline ‘The Document Company.’ Clear, to the point and direct.

In 2004, it dropped an emotional tug of a line that screamed ‘The Document Company.’ I always found this odd, especially since it replaced it with a more direct “Technology/Document Management/Consulting Services.” They owned the word ‘document.’ (A close competition on the word ‘document’ from Adobe though, with its tiny dog-eared edge curled page symbol - one, an entire generation by reflex referred to as a PDF).

First mistake.
Why lose the brand equity around the painstakingly carved line ‘The Document Company’? Clients, in my humble opinion, don’t necessarily care about how the company goes about making their ‘dreams’ come true and their lives more manageable. Whether Xerox deploys technology or consulting, the old tagline reflected a promise. Losing that means shaving your head; you’re the same person, but something’s a little bit off, even if for the first ten minutes. In brand value terms, that’s 10 minutes more for a client to choose a replacement. (Say possibly Canon?)

Fast forward to 2008.
Four years later. And the new spunky small-caps xerox is born along with a three-dimensional brandmark. What is it trying to say?

This entry was written by Danish Farhan, posted on at 2:21 am, filed under Designness. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.