The Cingular Brand, Shot Down In It’s Prime

A great one is leaving us, one that was so young, yet had already accomplished so much. This one could have been a truly great brand, but now we will never know. I’m talking about Cingular, the wireless phone brand that is now being phased out and lumped in under “the new” AT&T brand name. What a shame, this was a brand that grew so fast since its 2001 launch and was so fresh, that its little orange icon was well on its way to joining the ranks of the Nike Swoosh and McDonald’s arches as one of America’s most recognizable brand marks.

So how did this happen? Well first you must understand its corporate makeup; Cingular was a joint venture between two Baby Bells, SBC and BellSouth. The companies came together to create a new unified brand to unite all their regional wireless phone companies (11 companies total) under one new national brand, Cingular. The former AT&T Wireless brand was then acquired by SBC and also absorbed into Cingular in 2004, but not completely with it’s “Raising The Bar” tagline staying alive and adopted by Cingular. So AT&T Wireless became Cingular which has now become AT&T; that would not be confusing to customers at all, now would it? The AT&T brand reemerged as a powerhouse when SBC decided it wanted to put the old telecom giant back together and began acquiring the other Baby Bells that had made up AT&T before the government deregulated the telecommunications industry and split the company apart. SBC acquired what was left of AT&T in 2005 and changed its corporate name almost immediately to “the new” AT&T, with a freshened up logo (now at&t rather than AT&T), Kiefer Sutherland voice over and theme song form the British rock band Oasis. Just a few months ago “the new” AT&T acquired its joint venture partner BellSouth and without any hesitation, now owning all of Cingular, they moved to transition it’s wireless band to the AT&T brand name as well. Are you still with me here? If I lost you, then just watch this great clip from the Cobert Report.

Now I understand what they’re doing, they’re uniting all of their corporate divisions and entities under one brand umbrella, allowing them to more cost effectively promote the AT&T the brand nationwide. It also allows AT&T to easily bundle services and sell packages such as wireless phone services along with cable TV and internet to consumers. As much business since as that makes, my gut still tells me that this move was wrong. AT&T, despite its makeover, still stands for the old American Telephone & Telegraph Company. The brand is so old the ticker symbol that goes with it is “T”, yes that’s right, not three letters, just “T”. My point is It’s just flat out stodgy brand and by using lower case letters, a theme song from a washed up 1990’s band and agent Jack Bauer won’t have the edge it needs to successfully connect with the youthful and trendy consumers that make up a good percentage of the wireless phone market. That’s what made Cingular more than just a great brand, but a great wireless brand; it reflected the youth and energy of the wireless industry and its consumers. Fortunately for AT&T, or at&t, they will be the first to offer service on Apple new iPhone, which seemed like a much better fit when Steve Jobs announced Cingular was going to be the exclusive iPhone services provider that it does now as AT&T. The AT&T brand is not a bad brand, but it’s a brand that connects more strongly to an older generation, the Cingular brand was one that connected with a younger one; it will be interesting to see how this brand will evolve and we will only be left to wonder what that little orange guy, with all that energy and spunk, could have achieved.

Jake Crocker is a Partner and Brand Marketing Director at Martin Branding Worldwide, Inc.