By 
AT&T is ditching their company image and moving onto another philosophy entirely. Their recent “coverage” and “3G” spat with Verizon might get buried underneath a new slogan – “Rethink Possible” – and a new logo. Clearly their marketing team and engineering/product strategy team aren’t on the same page, because the latter seem to be asking, “Can we rethink a possible way to force AT&T Android users to download only the apps we want them to, and force them to keep our AT&T apps?”
Nevertheless, I appreciate the company’s move AWAY from the negativity:
“It’s not going to be the old model that there’s brand work, and then there’s consumer work or enterprise work; it’s all ‘Rethink Possible,'” said Senior VP-Brand Marketing and Advertising Esther Lee. “All of our communications across all of these channels is ‘Rethink Possible’ and this integration of design.”
This isn’t some little idea they want to test out, but rather an “an integrated campaign that includes print, outdoor, digital and non-advertising marketing,” that begins with a TV spot on today’s broadcast of the Master’s Golf Tournament.
While AT&T will continue to use “branding” as a way of adding invisible value, I’m pretty sure Verizon will continue their assault on under-performing competitors. Their most recent advertisements calling out Comcast for their new brand “Xfinity”? Hilarious and true if you ask me.
I mainly dislike negative ads that are misleading or intentionally and unnecessarily harsh – but in the above Xfinity case – I think its rather funny not to mention accurate.
About 6 months ago, HTC changed their slogan from HTC Innovation to “Quietly Brilliant“, and this AT&T rebranding feels like a similar move. Ironically, HTC was sued by Apple a few months later for failure to innovate, claiming they infringed on 20 patents (HTC: Oh yeah?). While that battle continues, HTC floods television sets in America with a far-reaching ad campaign to brand the manufacturer itself. I’d expect a similar approach from AT&T.
I’m thinking that AT&T definitely needs to “rethink possible” but in a different sense: with a new iPhone OS, new iPhone hardware, iPad and now multiple Androids – will their network possibly be able to handle all that data flying through the air? They better pray its possible, or get crackin’ on some serious infrastructure updates.
[Via BusinessInsider]
Talk about confusing for the average Joe. In trying to be catchy and short, it gets lost in translation. They want they’re customers going “that’s cool” and not “huh?” Whats wrong with simply just saying “Rethink the Impossible.” It’s still short, catchy, and does’t leave you going “huh?” Average Cell Phone User: ATT commercial begins on television stating Rethink Possible – “So if they say Rethink Possible, they’re really saying rethink what we think of as impossible. So we really should be thinking Rethink the Impossible…” Commercials over, and the customer doesn’t remember a thing about it besides being confused. Fail…
I was thinking. As long as a phone can be put into debug mode, the adb tools can install apps onto it.
.
The adb tool is difficult to use for mere mortals. So I was also thinking to build a gui wrapper around it. (In Java, thus making it platform independent. Linux/Mac/Windows.)
.
If such a tool also had nice graphical help showing a user exactly how to turn on the “debug” mode on their phone, then they could download .apk files and easily install them to their phone. Then turn off debug mode.
.
Now AT&T’s engineering and product tragedy team can’t do anything about it unless they want to disable debug mode. Yeah, that would be a good tragedy, er, um… I meant strategy.
The only thing i like about AT&T are the WIFI hotspot locations and their tie in to ESPN360. They are way behind the curve on business friendly phone choices and their new adopted policy of locking their android phone (similar to Steve J practice witht he iphone) is offensive.
Interesting article, we just wrote one similar to this actually.
Three questions I have for you droidies:
1. Does it matter to become a lifestyle brand ?
2. Is AT&T ‘s brand capable of delivering the kind value in their products that live up to Apple’s?
3. Can you commoditize a product/service into a lifestyle?
Check out our rendering of the new slogan, its pretty funny.
http://www.creativefeed.net/blog/rethink-possible-atts-new-slogan/
Just posted up a funny rendering of what we think the logo should look like;
http://www.creativefeed.net/blog/rethink-possible-atts-new-slogan/
two words: F*ck AT&T !
Will they finally be ditching the orange and blue color scheme and the guy who has done the voice overs in their commercials since the days of Cingular?!
One could only hope…
@CreativeFeed
1. No and yes.. depending if that’s your thing.
2. I guess so, since they have, at great success, since the beginning.
3. apparently so.. as millions of users believe that some product or service makes them “that kind of person”. The reality it that these people are just consumers like every other person.. the ability to spend money doesn’t change who you are.. but the illusion that it does can be sold.
It seems a lot of consumers appreciate the break from the negativity. Check out this post that provides more insight into the AT&T and Verizon commercial battle: http://lunchpail.knotice.com/2010/04/12/agency-shifts-underscore-mobile-competition/
Rethink the possible? What actually being able to complete a call. Because I sure haven’t been able to this week
all i want to know is who the singer is on the Rethink Possible commercial with the parade balloon like characters and the not so handsome guy sitting on the roof on a bench?
The singer is actor Gene Wilder from the original Willy Wonka and the chocolate Factory