Report: AT&T to sell ads over Cingular

AT&T’s acquisition of BellSouth gives it full control over the nation’s largest wireless carrier, and AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre has big plans for its new wholly owned mobile subsidiary.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Whitacre said AT&T has planned a huge advertising push over Cingular, leveraging the growing use of mobile data services and messaging to bring in billions of dollars of ad revenues where no revenue stream currently exists. The initiative will follow on the heels of similar advertising programs over AT&T’s wired networks. AT&T has been developing an advertising services package for its U-Verse triple-play package, in which it has opportunities to target ads at consumers on its broadband Internet as well as IPTV services.

With the $86 billion purchase of BellSouth and its stake in Cingular, however, AT&T will resurrect the AT&T Wireless moniker, announcing that the old AT&T logo will be transitioned onto the Cingular service. Once completed AT&T will have a single brand, off of which it can launch unified marketing programs as well as sell ads.

The entire wireless industry has been studying mobile advertising and marketing closely, recognizing the potential revenue windfalls of an ad distribution platform carried wherever a customer goes, but it is also wary of scaring customers away from mobile data services still in their infancy. While traditional ads like TV clips would reach only the relatively few mobile subscribers with mobile TV and video-capable phones, carriers have conducted trials of ad-serving on more readily used mobile applications, such as SMS and Web browsing.