Technology Into Action: Xerox Partners Make Key Contributions To New 'Set The Page Free' Brand Campaign

Xerox has leveraged the capabilities of one of its longstanding channel partners to print the book that serves as the centerpiece of the company's new brand campaign.

The Norwalk, Conn.-based vendor turned to Rochester, N.Y.-based solution provider Mercury Print Productions to digitally print a run of limited-release copies of "Speaking of Work: A Story of Love, Suspense and Paperclips ," in which 14 well-known authors share their perspectives on the modern workplace. The 200-page book will debut Friday at an event celebrating the project in New York City.

"Digital print technology is the ideal way to tackle this project," said John Place, Mercury Print's president and CEO, in a statement. "By speeding time-to-market, reducing waste and lowering fixed costs, digital printing affords publishers the flexibility to print only what they need, and print providers the ability to deliver those jobs at a low cost."

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Mercury Print relied on Xerox's Nuvera 144 EA Production System for book blocks using black-and-white ink, and turned to the Xerox iGen4 Press to develop color cover pages that capture the spirit of the project. The Nuvera 144 has the flexibility to fit smaller projects like this one, according to Xerox, while iGen4's color capabilities and high-quality output are ideal for book covers of this kind.

Applications developed by channel partners have also played a pivotal role in Xerox's "Set The Page Free" brand campaign. The campaign is focused on creating market awareness around Xerox's broad range of capabilities extending from printing and copying devices to customizable applications and workflows, according to Xerox Chief Marketing Officer Toni Clayton-Hine.

"We wanted to find a creative way to showcase how Xerox technology can help with collaboration on a grand scale," Clayton-Hine said. "This whole book came to life with Xerox technology."

A voice-recognition app developed by Fairfield, N.J.-based partner Vision-e enabled the 14 authors and creative talents involved in the project to communicate, connect and work from anywhere. Notable contributors to the book include Jonathan Ames, Lee Child, Sloane Crosley, Joshua Ferris, Roxane Gay, Chip Kidd and Joyce Carol Oates.

Vision-e Voice allows users to give verbal commands to their Xerox multifunction printer and was developed in close collaboration with Xerox engineers to allow access to the company's ConnectKey application programming interface.

Partners were also involved in developing Xerox's Easy Translator Service, which is being used to convert the "Set The Page Free" site to French and Latin American Spanish and extend the campaign to 22 countries. The Easy Translator Service can translate into more than 40 languages in just seconds, and is owned and operated by Milpitas, Calif.-based ABBYY USA Software House.

The "Set The Page Free" campaign will help channel partners demonstrate the outcomes that can be created using Xerox technology and articulate the value of applications that can be customized to meet an individual user's needs, according to Clayton-Hine. Xerox's channel community plays a key role in building the apps and workflows that help businesses bring collaboration to life, Clayton-Hine said.

Xerox's previous marketing programs focused more on the offering itself, Clayton-Hine said, highlighting specific products or the value of the ConnectKey API. Brand campaigns, meanwhile, were reserved primarily for the company's former business process services unit, which was spun out at the start of 2017 to create Conduent.

As a result, Clayton-Hine said this is the first brand-level campaign she can recall focused on Xerox's document technology business. The English version of the campaign is available now, Clayton-Hine said, while the French and Spanish versions of the campaign will be rolled out heading into 2018.

The "Set The Page Free" campaign is targeted at IT buyers and users, Clayton-Hine said, with media running in publications focused on CIOs, IT departments and the CEOs of smaller businesses. The campaign is also focused on business professionals and other users interacting in the modern workplace, according to Clayton-Hine.

Contributors to the book were asked to convey their perspective on the modern workplace through poems, short stories, essays and teleplays (which are used in the production of scripted television series), Clayton-Hine said. The individual chapters were then threaded together to create a cohesive, unified book, she said.

"The book is the manifestation of technology coming into action," Clayton-Hine said. "It's beautiful."