<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/technology/12phone.html>

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.

...

"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 nation’s 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 it’s one company, they want it under one name."

...

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. [emphasis added]

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


[MORE]