AT&T Prepares To ?De-Brand? The Cingular Wireless Name

One of the biggest de-brandings in advertising history is to begin Monday when AT&T, now the sole owner of Cingular Wireless, starts changing all Cingular marketing to adopt the AT&T name.

AT&T will not disclose the budget for the campaign, which will continue for five or six months — leading to the partnership with Apple on the new iPhone, scheduled for midyear.

A campaign last year to promote AT&T as the new brand name of SBC Communications cost an estimated $1 billion.

That campaign followed the acquisition of AT&T by SBC, whose chairman and chief executive, Edward E. Whitacre Jr., has long believed in the power of the AT&T brand to attract attention in the crowded telecommunications market.

We did rigorous research; we did not enter this decision lightly, Wendy Clark, senior vice president for advertising at AT&T in San Antonio, said yesterday of the decision to change the name of Cingular, the nations largest mobile carrier.

What consumer and business customers want is a single provider of services for the way they live and work today, Ms. Clark said, and if its one company, they want it under one name.

As for the opinions of some brand-identity consultants that the Cingular brand appeals to youth more than the venerable AT&T name, Ms. Clark said: The youth market is incredibly fickle when it comes to branding. If you give them what they want, the brand is secondary. Its incumbent upon us to keep delivering what Cingular offered its customers.

AT&T previously owned 60 percent of Cingular and BellSouth owned 40 percent. The ownership was united under AT&T on Dec. 29, when AT&T completed its acquisition of BellSouth.

The renaming campaign is reminiscent of a campaign that BellSouth and SBC sponsored in fall 2004, after Cingular acquired and absorbed what had been known as AT&T Wireless.

That 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.

AT&T will keep some familiar elements of Cingular ads, said Karen E. Jennings, senior executive vice president for advertising and corporate communications at AT&T. For example, the actor Stanley Tucci, who serves as the announcer in Cingular commercials, will be heard in AT&T commercials, she said. And the color orange will turn up in ads for what AT&T will call wireless service from AT&T; the name AT&T Wireless will not be revived.

Ms. Clark said that AT&T planned to continue working with the BBDO Worldwide agency, which created ads for Cingular.

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