Xerox Should Consider Dropping Mets from "Real Business" Campaign

Our friends at Xerox have done a fine job of leveraging their partnerships with high profile clients to shed light on how they support their customers' day-to-day businesses.

Their campaign suggests that Xerox's role is to handle all of the monotony of daily document-related logistics so their clients can focus on the important things, whether it's winning ballgames or excelling in business.

The University of Notre Dame, Proctor & Gamble, Ducati and Target Corporation are among the various clients who have been featured in the campaign. At minimum, the campaign is a terrific example of how a company can leverage its sponsorships and business partnerships with the likes of sports teams and universities to help spotlight the more menial (read: boring) aspects of day-to-day business, including document management, direct mail, publications and managing printing costs.

The fully integrated campaign includes advertising creative, digital, online video, social media and public relations.

One property that has also been featured in the campaign is the New York Mets. Below is an example of some of the digital creative from the campaign. The creative includes the line "The Mets are ready for real business."

Those who astutely follow sport business are aware of the fact that the owners of the Mets recently received a loan from Major League Baseball to cover their payroll and other administrative costs. Many may also be aware that the Mets' ownership group have been accused by the trustee representing victims of Bernie Madoff that the Mets' owners profited from their association with Madoff, allowing them to use the profits received from their investments with him to cover deferred player payroll payments and provide the capital to start SNY, their team-owned regional sports network.

The Mets were also recently forced to bring on a minority investor, David Einhorn, presumably to add needed capital to cover operating costs.

To be fair, Major League Baseball has publicly supported the Mets' ownership group and there has heretofore been no proof that Mets ownership was aware of Madoff's schemes. During my career I have found the Mets to be a wonderful group of individuals and partners for multiple clients I have worked with.

However, given these challenges and accusations, perhaps it is time for Xerox to pull the plug on the inclusion of the Mets in such a high profile campaign.

Or at minimum, modify creative to water down the suggestion that the Mets are the perfect embodiment of "real business."