AT&T's Brand: From Mostly Dead to Very Alive?

Joseph Laszlo | September 01, 2005, 02:13 PM

BusinessWeek Online is reporting that SBC plans to change its corporate name once the acquisition of AT&T is completed, giving the once-mighty Ma Bell brand an unexpected new lease on life. Quoting: "SBC, which was spun off from AT&T amid the breakup of the Bell telephone system in 1984, will assume its former parent's name, BusinessWeek Online has learned. "

My thinking when the merger was announced [JupiterResearch report] had SBC retaining the brand, certainly, for key services, but not adopting it wholesale. However, having covered telecom now for nigh on a decade, and just being a fan of old brands in general, I'm pretty psyched by the idea.

Is it sensible?

In certain contexts:

The business market: regardless of AT&T's issues in the residential market, its services and brand in the enterprise market remain pretty strong. Emphasizing that it's AT&T may help SBC keep credibility in this segment of the market.

The very mainstream, older consumer: While adopting the AT&T name will do nothing to "youthify" SBC's brand image, for very mainstream consumers over the age of say 45, AT&T is still synonymous with telephony.

The out-of-region market: I'm not really convinced SBC has any serious plan to provide residential services out of region. Unless things have changed dramatically in the last couple of months, AT&T's VoIP service has gone over like a lead balloon [my blog], so doesn't provide much of a bootstrap. But still, I'd wager "SBC" has relatively little brand recognition outside its service territory (particularly since the creation of "Cingular"), while "AT&T" is global.

One final point, for my uncle in SF, I know you were a little ticked off when PacBell Park became SBC Park, but "AT&T Park" has kind of a nice ring to it, no?