Looks like my cell phone service branding will be changing … again. Sort of like a guy at a company which keeps getting acquired or merged with — the desk stays the same, but the business cards keep getting replaced.
AT&T Inc.’s planned rebranding of Cingular Wireless cell phone service under the AT&T name – not AT&T Wireless – is slated to start next week with a multimedia ad campaign announcing what’s expected to be a multi-month transition.
[…] Cingular’s name and orange “Jack” logo, both created only six years ago, will continue to appear alongside the AT&T brand and blue “globe” logo until the company is confident customers won’t be confused by the switch, AT&T announced Friday.
But by midyear, it’s “likely” the Cingular name and symbol will be disappearing from ads, promotional materials, trucks, bills, stores and buildings, said Wendy Clark, senior vice president of advertising for San Antonio-based AT&T. The only remnant to survive the transition will be the orange, which will be used for accent and background coloring for AT&T’s cellular products and services.
So far, with a single phone, I’ve managed to have … well, this will be the third “name” to show up.
In fact, a dwindling number of Cingular subscribers are still carrying around phones bearing the name and logo AT&T Wireless – artifacts of a tongue-twisting corporate saga that’s both confusing and amusing.
Today’s AT&T was known as SBC Communications until late 2005, when that regional Bell company acquired its former parent, the AT&T Corp. long-distance business. Several years before that deal, the AT&T long-distance company spun off its cell phone business, AT&T Wireless, as an independent concern. Then, in late 2004, AT&T Wireless was acquired by Cingular, which had no real desire or legal right to adopt a brand still owned by the AT&T long-distance business.
Instead, Cingular parents SBC and BellSouth decided to unify the companies under the Cingular brand, neither one realizing they’d all soon be merged into one company called AT&T.
Estimates vary widely, but there’s no doubt that billions of dollars have been spent creating the Cingular brand from scratch and marketing its products under that name.
The annoying thing is, despite being a “Cingular” customer, most of the cellular services I get through them are still “Cingular (Formerly AT&T Wireless) / mmode” — which doesn’t get much love form Cingular (and will probably be even more orphaned by the new AT&T.