the MARTINI SHAKER

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Making People Smarter

I spoke to Merlin Mann on the phone the other day. We had a great conversation, and he ended it with an interesting question:

“How do we make people smarter?”

I have a couple of ideas….
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SXSW 2010: I’m done stewing. Here’s the poop.

My very first SXSW experience is now in the history books. I had an amazing time, but the sheer volume of experiences and information that was crammed into 5 days was a little overwhelming. I needed a little time to …
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TweetStar

One of the refreshingly inspiring panels that I attended at SXSWi this year was about people who engage in “Slow Twitter.” These people take their time to craft most of their tweets for maximum entertainment value. Most of the time, …
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Spring Break for nerds.

Tomorrow morning, I’m headed on a plane to beautiful Austin, TX for the South By Southwest Interactive Conference, also known to some as Spring Break for nerds.

This is my first trip to SXSWi, and I couldn’t be any more excited. …
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A conversation that made me cry.

Nathan wanted to go on a car ride with me last night. In addition to being in the “me too” phase, he’s started his “Why?” stage early, so of course he wanted to know why we were taking an …
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AT&T bids farewell to Saul Bass icon

Shaken for you: November 21, 2005

If you weren’t aware, SBC recently purchased AT&T, and along with the changes and improvements that they are making to the company, they have decided to do away with the 1984 logo that Saul Bass designed.

I’ll leave discussion of the aesthetics of the new mark for the comments section, but as discussion fodder I will share the rationale from the official press release:

“The revitalized mark symbolizes these attributes ââ¬â innovation, integrity, quality, reliability and unsurpassed customer care,” Whitacre added. “Our customers know that we’re focused on keeping our promises, committed to operating honestly, and dedicated to bringing them new products that make a difference in their lives.”

The new logo reinvigorates the AT&T globe ââ¬â one of the most recognized corporate symbols in the world. The new globe is three-dimensional, representing the expanding breadth and depth of services that the new AT&T family of companies provides to customers, as well as its global presence.

Transparency was added to the globe to represent clarity and vision. Lowercase type is now used for the “AT&T” characters because it projects a more welcoming and accessible image. The core of the new logo remains blue because both the SBC and AT&T brands are strongly associated with that color. The overall design more accurately represents the company that is leading the industry in delivering best-in-class services to consumers and business professionals.

Given that rationale, the question is: Does this new logo truly communicate those objectives? Discuss.

If you want to research and have some ammunition for your critique, you can look at a PDF of the evolution of the SBC/AT&T logo.

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  • I just don’t think SBC can make a smart marketing decision. They got rid of the great Pacific Bell brand and replaced it with SBC, a company up to that point I had never heard of. And AT&T wireless had a horrible reputation before it got rolled into Cingular.

  • I read about their decision to abolish the Cingular brand after posting this today, and I also have to wonder what their marketing team is smoking. To me, the worst part about the whole thing is that they’re not assimilating the Cingular brand entirely. Apparently, there will still be some markets that SBC will continue to sell wireless services under the Cingular name. So, why (especially given the amount of money and effort used to fold AT&T Wireless into the Cingular brand) would they backtrack and reverse all this work only partially? Either you’re Cingular or you’re AT&T Wireless. Make up your mind!


    As an aside, their service doesn’t matter to me much anyway, as my time as a Cingular customer was some of the worst in my cellular/wireless history.


    And incidentally, I can’t decide whether I like the new logo or not. Lots of things about it make me not want to like it, but the more I think about it in terms of the rationale, it’s at least starting to make sense, even though I think some of the points of the rationale are weak at best.

  • They already spent bling to incororate (shove?) AT&T Wireless branding into the Cingular logo & brand. Now, they are doing away Cingular’s brand. I truly think not only will it cost way more bling, but also seriously detract from Cingular’s target demographic. Maybe they’ll attract more boomers, but there not the ones who purchase data plans I’d wager.

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