AT&T delivers a world of new ads

If your New Year’s Eve plans lack excitement--don’t worry.

AT&T plans to spice up various Dec. 31 television programs with the first ad in what it promises will be a landmark campaign to re-brand the merged AT&T-SBC. The year-long campaign, which includes major Olympics tie-in, will launch with the first national television spot, called Eclipse. In addition, AT&T’s billboard will be in full view as the ball drops in New York’s Times Square to denote the arrival of 2006.

Eclipse will feature images of the world and a montage of people engaged in communicating.

AT&T had promised a multimillion-dollar, multi-faceted campaign when the merger was completed in November, but to date it hasn’t changed its SBC-branded ads within the franchise territory, other than to add an AT&T tagline such as “now combined with AT&T” to existing SBC ads. Those ads will change, effective Dec. 31, a spokeswoman said, and former SBC customers will now hear AT&T ads, designed especially for them.

The company said it will be launching marketing promotional initiatives and sponsorships to promote a “revitalized” logo and a new tagline – “Your world. Delivered.”

“No one company can deliver the world,” the spokeswoman said. “The idea is that AT&T can deliver your world to you. We cater to consumers and deliver services as they want them. Also, the new AT&T is bringing together AT&T’s passion to invent and SBC’s drive to deliver.”

While the new company bears AT&T’s name, it is clearly SBC-driven, at the management level. The ad campaign was developed by two agencies who have served SBC in the past – GSD&M of Austin, Texas, which has handled the company’s consumer advertising and Rogers Townsend of St. Louis, which handled SBC’s business to business advertising. The two worked together on this campaign, which will be used to address both markets, the spokeswoman said.

The company has developed a set of regional ads, called “Street by Street” and “Behind the Wheel” that will air in the 13 states in which SBC holds local service franchises, and seek to reassure consumers that the name change doesn’t affect their services.

“Our customers told us that, above all, there are three things they expect from us,” said AT&T Chairman and CEO Edward Whitacre, in a prepared statement. “They want innovation that’s meaningful, that makes a real difference for them. They expect us to earn their trust by keeping our promises and standing behind our products. And they expect us to treat them fairly, with no surprises. ‘Your world. Delivered.’ is our way of pledging to all of our customers--from a teenager in California to the CIO of a global company--that AT&T’s passion to invent and SBC’s drive to deliver have come together to deliver what matters most in their lives.”