Created by Charles Peattie and Russell Taylor in 1987, the Alex cartoon strip made its dbut in The Daily Telegraph in 1992 and follows the working life of City high-flyer Alex Masterley, sharing his wry observations on the corporate and financial world. As part of the Xerox colour brand campaign, for the first time in his history Alex will appear with all four frames in colour, running from Monday 27 February for six consecutive weeks. Special story lines have also been developed by the cartoon strip's creators in support of Xerox's colour message, themed on the benefits that Xerox colour can bring to business.
The campaign extends to online, with readers able to download a specially designed Alex "skinker" - a technology that delivers information to the desktop - from The Daily Telegraph website. This will feed through breaking business news three times a day.
"We are delighted to be partnering with Alex for our latest Xerox brand campaign. He is a fun character, loved by everyone, and we're looking forward to injecting some extra colour into his life - and brightening up Monday morning for Telegraph readers too!" commented David Millican, head of communications, Xerox UK. "The new all-colour Alex cartoon and desktop icon are a real departure both for Xerox and The Daily Telegraph. Xerox has a history of colour innovation, with our unique solid ink technology that delivers crisp, vibrant images and more than 2,700 additional colour-related patents, so it is only fitting that we should choose such a breakthrough media solution to lead our colour initiative."
Rich Astley, account director for Xerox at MEC Interaction added, "Xerox's partnership with Alex is a great platform for connecting with business people in the UK. We were looking for a way to demonstrate the unique benefit that adding colour to documents can deliver, and this solution met our criteria perfectly. With Daily Telegraph readers seeing Alex in colour, and then being able to download a desktop version from the website to deliver news, we have content of real value being supported by Xerox both on-line and off-line."
The idea for the new all-colour Alex was developed by The Daily Telegraph's in-house advertising projects team, Telegraph Create, with campaign planning and buying carried out by media agency Mediaedge:cia.
The Xerox colour brand campaign, targeting a business and IT audience, also incorporates advertising across online, outdoor, on television and in print as follows. Highlights include a special build outdoor campaign launching on 20 March that will, literally, illuminate the Xerox business colour message as well as advertisements on the soon-to-be-launched MSN Video, with Xerox as one of the first advertisers for the service.
- Online - Advertisements will appear on the Times Online, VNU.net and MSN Video , a new service launching in the UK at the beginning of March;
Outdoor - Xerox is launching a special-build 96-sheet London campaign on 20 March, supported by fully liveried taxis;
Television - Advertisements will appear on ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 as well as on multiple cable and satellite channels;
Print - Advertisements will appear in titles including The Times, The Guardian, The Independent and The Evening Standard and in specialist IT press such as IT Week, Computer Weekly and Computing .
Xerox Europe, the European operations of Xerox Corporation, markets a comprehensive range of Xerox products, solutions and services, as well as associated supplies and software. Its offerings are focused on three main areas: offices from small to large, production print and graphic arts environments, and services that include consulting, systems design and management, and document outsourcing.
Xerox Europe also has manufacturing and logistics operations in Ireland, the UK and the Netherlands, and a research and development facility (Xerox Research Centre Europe) in Grenoble, France. For more information visit, www.xerox.com.
Xerox is a trademark of Xerox Corporation. All non-Xerox brands and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
Media Contacts
David Millican, Xerox UK, tel: +44 (0) 1895 843 196,
email: david.millican@xerox.com
Kinross + Render (on behalf of Xerox), Sophie Hemsworth/ Janine Maxwell
tel: +44 (0) 20 7592 3100,
email: sh@kinrossrender.com/ jm@kinrossrender.com