The Daily News (via the NY Times) is reporting that Monday starts another “debranding”. This time, the brand biting the dust is Cingular, which won’t be “raising the bar” for much longer. Yes, that Cingular, the one that was just in the news for being the exclusive telephony service supplier of the iPhone (™ Apple Inc. Cisco). You see, thanks to the purchase of BellSouth (Cingular was 60% AT&T and 40% BellSouth), Cingular is returning to the AT&T name, after it spent gobs of money weaning folks from the “AT&T Wireless” name after it purchased AT&T Wireless from, ummm, AT&T. A campaign last year to promote AT&T as the new brand name of SBC Communications cost an estimated $1 billion.
The advertising should be fun. When AT&T became Cingular, the campaign showed the AT&T globe logo morphing into the orange dot atop the Cingular logo, a blob shaped like a jack. The new campaign shows the Cingular logo being transformed into an AT&T globe. The AT&T slogan, “Your world delivered,” replaces the Cingular slogan, “Raising the bar.” The actor Stanley Tucci, who serves as the announcer in Cingular commercials, will be heard in AT&T commercials, and the color orange will turn up in ads for what AT&T will call “wireless service from AT&T”… but “AT&T Wireless” will not be revived.
Of course, the wireless market has a history of renaming. I should know — I used to be with AirTouch Cellular, which was the former Pacific Telesis Cellular (and of course Pacific Telesis, nee PacBell, is now part of AT&T, nee SBC), and is now Verizon Wireless, after the merger with Bell Atlantic and GTE.
All of this is yet another step in the reestablishment of “Ma Bell“. Divesture, Schmesture. It’s back. The next thing you’ll know, they’ll start distributing Unix again, and we’ll have lovely trademark footnotes.
This has also reignited the Technology Dead Pool, of trademarks that die. I still have WebVan and WebGrocer magnets on my refrigerator. We’re going to be seeing more, this time through mergers.
One thing that hasn’t died (yet) is National Delurking Week. Show that you’re still alive. Delurk. Remember, if you don’t leave a comment, we’ll think you’ve been bought by Google.
