AT&T Brand Confusion

Once upon a time, there were five separate telecommunications companies:

AT&T
AT&T Wireless
Cingular
SBC
Bell South

Over a year ago, Cingular merged with AT&T Wireless and proceeded to phase out the "AT&T Wireless" name. Then, SBC acquired AT&T and adopted the "AT&T" company name. Now, if all goes as planned, AT&T is buying Bell South.

Confused yet? Read on. The plan is for AT&T (formerly SBC), which will also gain controlling interest in Cingular, to drop the Cingular brand name and revive it as AT&T Wireless. Sorting through this circuitous mess, we will end up with the following brands:

AT&T
AT&T Wireless

I suppose that the simplicity is good from a branding perspective, but does "AT&T" have any coherent meaning anymore?

Comments

Michael said…

All I know is that next time I need to send a telegraph, AT&T is my man.

Fri Mar 10, 12:56:00 AM 2006

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