Yellow Pages Lighting Up a New Ad Logo, Slogan

DENVER —  After nearly 40 years, the Yellow Pages fingers are walking off the job.

The trade association for telephone directory publishers will replace the “Let Your Fingers Do the Walking” logo and advertising campaign next year with a light- bulb logo and the slogan, “Get an Idea.”

The change is designed to change the image of the Yellow Pages from a listing of telephone numbers to a consumer resource book, said Jim Logan, president and chief executive officer of the Yellow Pages Publishers Assn.

For example, Logan said, consumers can use the phone book to come up with ideas for a home improvement project, instead of just finding the name of a contractor.

A $24-million campaign featuring comedian Jon Lovitz will be launched in January to promote the new logo.

“Everybody knows about the Yellow Pages,” Logan said. “Everybody knows about the walking fingers, but candidly it’s a little boring.”

The walking fingers logo was created in 1961 to unite the 21 Bell Telephone companies that made up AT&T; and became a widely recognized advertising campaign.

Slightly more than half of the directory publishers still use the logo today, Logan said.

The light-bulb campaign is the first launched by the $12 billion-a-year industry since the breakup of AT&T; in 1984, said Forrest Miller, chairman of the association’s board of directors.

It comes at a time when printed Yellow Pages face increased competition from alternative sources, such as Internet directories.

“We firmly believe the market is changing,” Logan said. “Most of our publishers are involved in one way or another with electronic Yellow Pages.

“The whole area of media and advertising is in a revolution, and we do need to promote our product in order to maintain and help increase use.”

Based in Denver, the association represents about 400 companies, including directory publishers, agencies that sell the products and those that sell paper, ink and other services to the industry.