Xerox Says We’ve Evolved, The Ad Shows Us How

Xerox revolutionized the art of photocopying. The company is now releasing an advertisement that dispels the notion that many have regarding Xerox; that it is just a company that makes machines meant for document replication. The company aims to highlight the fact that in it’s almost five decades of existence it has embraced strong social accountability and helps communities.

Christa Carone, CMO at Xerox said that the ad was to steer the brand away from its stereotyped image and tell the world that it had evolved and wants the world to understand its evolution, “We want you to believe us that our brand can move… into this broader space,” she said.

The video, entitled the “World Made Simpler by Xerox” opens with a person photocopying a drawing of a circle. The circle morphs into a light bulb, which in turn morphs into a compact disc that changes into a wall full of charts and pictures and words and a literal tsunami of data, engulfs the space – an attempt to show that what was supposed to make life easier had in reality, made it more complicated. Hence, Xerox implies, the dish that needs to be served is not newer technology but simplification.

The company, through its video shows, that apart from making replicas of documents it also helps doctors, virtually, monitor patients to provide better health care, make anti-counterfeit packaging, to counter fraud, that ensure that you are getting the genuine medicines, by installing cameras on school-buses to make the children safer and by augmenting the public transportation system and by setting up call-centres during natural calamities to ease and provide communication when it’s availability is of critical importance. This says, Xerox, is how we are simplifying the way the world works and this is what we do apart from photocopying documents.

The “A World Made Simpler” video explains “We find ways to channel it all into simple streams of data, so you can focus on only the information you need and share it seamlessly.”

To demonstrate these possibilities, the ad in an innovative and charming way uses, thousands of letter-size size sheets of paper that contain images that make you misty eyed, images of a small child being treated, school children, hands clasped together and a cozy home, all images that create a gamut of emotions within your heart.

The lead agency partner Young and Rubicam along with the production agency Psyop said that for a fortnight they worked in a “windowless, lightless, concrete studio,” to create the unique technique that was required for the video to come to life. The team said that the technique was akin to animation, but really wasn’t animation, but required, “a manually intensive process of printing, folding, cutting, crimping, air blowing, rolling, stacking and pasting individual pieces of paper by hand – in order to create an effect of animation.”

The video has garnered  150,000 hits on YouTube. Xerox CEO Carone said, “It’s not so much about views on YouTube,” she said, the video is meant to initiate dialogue and is a “conversation starter” for salespeople and internal employee relations. “It starts a conversation that they can have with clients and prospects.”