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Jan. 15, 2007

As agreed, AT&T is slated to phase-out its 6-year-old Cingular Wireless' brand beginning next week.

AT&T said it will transition its Cingular brand to its own portfolio of products services in a massive advertising and customer communications campaign targeting Cingular's Websites, retail stores, company buildings and vehicles.

Last week, AT&T gained full control of Cingular as its $86 billion acquisition of BellSouth became final.

At the time, AT&T said its huge rebranding campaign will kick off with "Raising It Higher" media spots, which morph Cingular's familiar "raising the bar" tag line and imagery into the AT&T globe.

"Around the world, our customers recognize the AT&T brand for meaningful innovation, a commitment to customer service, high quality and exceptional reliability," said AT&T CEO Edward Whitacre.

"AT&T, BellSouth and Cingular are now one company, and going to market with our services under one brand is the right thing to do," he added.

However, while the AT&T logo will be prominently featured in all advertising and communications, the company says ads will initially include a transitional graphic with both the AT&T and Cingular logos.

During the transition, AT&T says it plans to integrate popular imagery, phrases and icons from Cingular's traditional advertising, including the "raising the bar" tag line, the "Jack" character and the color orange, and each campaign element will see the Cingular and AT&T logos coming together while an announcer states that "Cingular is now the new AT&T."

Broadcast spots will end with animation in which the "Jack" character appears to "skywrite" the AT&T globe.

Additional spots called "Jets" and "Cars" will appear in the coming weeks. AT&T also says that within the coming months all 2,000 Cingular wireless retail outlets across the country will transition to AT&T-branded signage, and Cingular's 15,000 store employees will be outfitted with AT&T-branded apparel.

Within weeks, AT&T expects callers to Cingular's customer service centers to hear the AT&T name mentioned on voice greetings, and merger-transition messages will be placed on envelopes with customer billing as the AT&T logo begins appearing on bills.

Customers will be asked to make payment checks out to AT&T.

In its press release, AT&T explains, "Customers will continue to see existing Cingular product and service names until all necessary legal and regulatory name-change filings are complete.

The use of the AT&T and Cingular co-branded graphic will continue until customer awareness levels are high that Cingular has joined with AT&T. Once the transition ends, the color orange will continue to be associated with AT&T's wireless services, while the Cingular brand will be phased out."

AT&T pointed out that approximately 20% of the operating expense savings from the AT&T-BellSouth merger will come from advertising as all operations are combined under a single brand.

Until now, the three companies each supported distinct brands with separate ad campaigns. AT&T didn't disclose how much it's spending on this latest brand-transition campaign.

Telecom Analyst Jeff Kagan notes, "In yesterday's marketplace, changing the name would not be necessary. People bought a wireless phone separate from their other services. But in tomorrow's marketplace, increasingly customers will buy the big bundle of services, so having a master brand makes sense."

Kagan also points out, "Telephone companies are gearing up to compete with cable television companies for the big bundle of services. We used to do business with several companies - a telephone company, a wireless company and a television company.

Overall, these companies are in the process of expanding their offerings, and tomorrow customers will be able to choose one company for everything and say goodbye to the others.

In this highly competitive marketplace, it makes sense for AT&T to re-brand Cingular," the company said.

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Source: Wireless Week