Cingular/AT&T to swap names, again.

I think this is a horrible move for AT&T. They should definetly keep Cingular as their cellular brand. It’s got brand recognition as a Cell Phone provider. AT&T has no brand recognition in the cellular world outside of certain regions. They were a relatively small player in the cell world and usually only operated in a region.

If they want to strengthen their brand instead of getting rid of Cingular they should simply add “a subsidiary of AT&T on the bills and letter head. I think this would give AT&T customers the option to get all their services in one place and recognize it as so but to capitalize on the hipper and more relevant brand image of Cingular. AT&T represents old school which is not a good thing in the tech world.

I see this as a mistake.

at&t should learn from the Sprint/Nextel merger. It is still ongoing because they didn’t want to ruin/blur the image of either brand.

I agree they should definetly choose one brand to be the dominate branded image of the service. I should definetly not be AT&T.

AT&T is a stupid name. At least Cingular was a new name with some decent buzz that attracts their target audience. Sorry AT&T, Gertrude and Earl aren’t your main customers anymore, get the hint!

From the article

“AT&T executives hope a sole brand will signal to consumers that the company is a one-stop shop for myriad services…”

And the idiots are going with the name AT&T versus Cingular to brand a sole on-stop shop. Wow!

I meant “one-stop”

ps - is there a way to get an edit function for this section?

I agree AT&T is lame. I was listening to NPR and the business editor from The Economist, which is a great magazine, pretty much said they are stupid. He obviously said it with a little more intelligence and with a british accent.

However, he said that based on the poll that was taken more people said they trusted the AT&T name because it was old. He said that the poll was international and that it is likely that the reason that AT&T tested better than Cingular is because Cingular doesn’t have as much international brand recognition.

I want to get more into this topic and am going to make a post on it on my blog.

I never liked the quality of Cingulars service, but their name recognition and marketing were tops. So was their customer service.

I loved the CIngular brand, and to drop is is plain idiocy and madness.

Geez would you look at those typos.

I need a break from this puter. Like, maybe a month!

Timothy,

Exactly. I can’t argue with what anyone says about their level of service but their branding was phenominal.

Especially when they bought AT&T and merged the brands the first time they did a great job of incorporating the raising the bar next to their already well known orange “jack”

oh well I guess we all agree this is a classic case of puffed administration not having their ear to the ground and knowing what the end user really wants.

AT&T has always had a horrible brand persona. Looks like they timed this re-re-branding after the iPhone announcement so they could play off of that hype.

If they donated the hundreds of millions they’re going to spend on new packaging, collateral, ads, they could take hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty.

Imagine the publicity they’d get for taking hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty - pound for pound WAY more than they’re going to get buying all new plastic bags, business cards, vinyl signing, and kiosk material. Seth Godin would have a hayday with this, ‘eh Travis?

They spent 4 billion to make AT&T wireless Cingular and now they are going to spend 2 billion to make Cingular AT&T.

Total 6 billion. Isn’t that stupid.

Save the 2 billion and help the horrible brand image you already have by doing what you guys said.