A Tale of Three Logos
2004-2005 saw the mergers of a few wireless giants: Sprint/Nextel, Cingular/AT&T Wireless, and most recently, SBC Communications/AT&T. And unless you paid close attention, you probably didn’t hear much about the nitty-gritty: integrating their sales forces, technology platforms, why they paid $41 billion, and all the other details of these mega-mergers (especially executive compensation - you really don’t want to know about that).
However, what you did see were marketing campaigns trumpeting the *benefits* of these newly combined companies. Most prominent (to me) was how each company approached the creation of their new logos.
Sprint/Nextel
Approach: Keep Sprint’s logo but update it in yellow. They’ve also been using the tagline “together with Nextel” for a while, but I haven’t seen it in the last few commercials.
Cingular/AT&T Wireless
Approach: Cingular kept their logo but added a little of the AT&T blue. No mention of AT&T wireless anymore.
SBC Communications/AT&T
Approach: Keep the AT&T logo, but update it slightly — very, very, slightly.
Of these three logos, it seems the SBC/AT&T version is drawing the most fire. Why? It’s not new.
In their defense, why mess with such an established brand image? It takes a really long time (and money) to establish and position a brand in the consumers mind, so I can understand why they were hesitant in making sweeping changes. For more on that, check out Design Observer.
Want a different take? Make sure to read the Logo Doctors article on Business Week Online’s wonderful Innovation Channel.