My Name Is AT&T (Maybe, Sorta, Possibly)

Here is #2 in a series of stupid branding tricks. Flashback: The consummate name change unfolded into a class A brand mess in 2007 at the same time my book Punk Marketing was coming out.

Here’s what happened.

In 2005, SBC Communications bought AT&T, creating a company that reminds those of us old enough to remember about Ma Bell. In 2006, AT&T got approval to take over BellSouth and so it changed its name to AT&T. AT&T did not, however, change the name of Cingular, which it got sole control of at the same time, but instead waited to do a name-dance until January 15, 2007. Branding geniuses (lightly used) from AT&T had forgotten how much AT&T was hated as a wireless company a few years back.

I understand the concept of name recognition as well as the next marketer. AT&T was a known entity. But Cingular, with their odd little orange man-shaped logo, grew to become not only a well recognized name — even if the idea of singular or analog in a digital world was comical — and a connector to youth culture, but a quality performer in a marketplace where “cell phone companies” are hated, to say the least.

AT&T on the other hand was known in its previous incarnation as clueless when it came to wireless. (They were the phone company, quote unquote, and took their sweet time grabbing hold of the new non-tethered space).

People cringed in the '90s when encountering someone who’d been dumb enough to sign a multi-year contract with AT&T Wireless. What irked me was the nearly billion dollars a year this wayward group spent a year on ads and unreadable advertorial mini-magazines that popped up as newspaper circulars and were handed out at rodeos. That cash outlay was immense! Yet AT&T never bothered to do a thing to improve shoddy cell system nor its unfathomably crappy customer handling.

The latest AT&T jumped on to some kind of orbital shaped image and adopted a tagline I still don’t get: “Your world. Delivered.” I wondered how this newly-minted AT&T could deliver any world when the old one AT&T threw at us frustrated so many with poor-at-best wireless signals.


AT&T has for a few years now been delivering all things to all people, claiming to offer superior “modern” communication. But their actual raison d’être is not evident. In a fast-paced century like 21, actions speak louder than name changes. Cingular – a brand I miss – stood for new and forward thinking. What does AT&T stands for? All together now: Monolith.

The AT&T corporate stooges explain that the move saves 20 percent on operating costs as they force the brands into a single namesake. And to do so, they needed to forfeit the truly clever Cingular slogan, “Raising the Bar,” and instead bring out “Raising It Higher.” (Good Viagra tag, no doubt.)

And then there was BellSouth. It took me a while to let go of BellSouth as my BlackBerry provider; this was the group that gingerly brought me into the digital age back in, uh, 1996. Eventually, I got used to Cingular and was happy with it, though the idea of “fewest dropped calls” was a funny misnomer. Now, like all my iPhone-happy buddies, I am forced to use AT&T.

In the end it’s all about ego – what were you expecting? AT&T, a moniker that I salute and mock, stands tall in American history and these days SBC/AT&T/BellSouth/Crosby Stills Nash & Young wants to be seen as an ages-old corporation. It is a roll-up just like any other.

Whatever the rationale behind the group naming, it has always smelt like people who wanted to keep their jobs and thus add work that wasn’t necessary, which is so not Punk! (For the scoop on Punk Marketing methodology, see PunkMarketing.com). Plus I'm kind of worried: What happened to that Cingular orange man? Has he been pushed out of a job the rude way the Sock Puppet or Charlie The E*TRADE Chimp was? Will Orange Dude be able to feed his family!? Gosh, last time something this round had so much personality it was hanging out with Tom Hanks on an island!

Names like Cingular are, I guess, passé. Brand names “for the greater good” are in vogue. I feel good about my own slogan for Punk Marketing: Join the Revolution! I haven't changed it.

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