Beleagured Gateway ditches cow on its way to slaughterhouse

The headline is not a typo. Beleaguered Gateway, still floundering for a handhold even though it rolled off the cliff a long time ago, has killed its cow motif. If the cow won’t make it to the slaughterhouse, the company is well on its way. “For years, computer company Gateway Inc. has traded on the South Dakota roots of its founder and chief executive, Theodore W. Waitt. The company’s brand — either homespun or hayseed, depending on your view — has been symbolized by a Holstein cow. The white boxes that the computers come in are covered with black cow spots. Gateway Country stores are stippled with cow spots. Waitt even appeared in television commercials with a bantering bovine. Now, in a new flight of ads designed to bolster sales and give the company a more upscale image during the crucial holiday season, Waitt has killed the beloved cow. ‘I’ve been calling it the de-prairiefication’ of the company, Waitt said in an interview,” writes Frank Ahrens in today’s Washington Post. Read about a company grasping for survival here.