Cingular Brand Worth 4 Billion

When AT&T cuts the Cingular brand it will loose the 4 billion dollars that was spent building one of the most successful cellular brands.

From RCRNews:

"Not only is AT&T—in the throes of acquiring Cingular owner BellSouth Corp.—planning to ditch the Cingular name and ubiquitous, sprightly orange jack, but it will replace it with its own stodgy moniker, renaming the division AT&T Wireless. Such a move could conjure up images of the rotary dial and cause so much confusion that experts estimate it may take another $2 billion in marketing expenses to explain the changes to consumers.

AT&T argues that the $4 billion spent building Cingular—it will lay out around $1 billion this year alone—won’t be wasted, because, in the words of spokesman Michael Coe, it has “created a brand that has led to a customer base which is the largest in the U.S.” The company also claims that the single moniker for all AT&T services will “eliminate customer confusion and make a much more elegant solution.”

“To give up Cingular is a mistake,” especially in favor of AT&T, “my father’s brand of telephony,” said Jonathan Asher, president, Dragon Rouge USA, a branding and design consultancy.

Karl Barnhart, managing director, CoreBrand, New York, a former AT&T agency, agreed that changing the Cingular name “doesn't make sense.” Cingular’s brand is “relevant for the younger audience; it’s a fun, hip, interesting, dynamic—everything you don’t think about AT&T.”

The head of one wireless company joked that AT&T is spending a lot of money for virtually the same logo and a lot of lower case letters."