inquisity

Yeah, I know it happened more than a year ago, but the decision to change Cingular’s name to AT&T is still one of the worst branding decisions since I’ve been paying attention to brands. Cingular spent so much money building a great brand that catered to younger consumers, and threw it away because AT&T is more “recognizable” (I would love to see the marketing data on that, by the way).

I’m still amazed at how powerful the Cingular brand is (yes, present tense). Pretty much everyone I know who has AT&T still calls it Cingular. Stephen Colbert picked up on the absurdity of it all:

I’m guessing the marketing people have either seen their error and don’t want to admit fault, or have decided changing the name back to Cingular would confuse people even more and are sticking with AT&T for the time being. I find it hard to believe that the decision was the right one.

A great in-depth analysis from Laura Ries here if you’re curious.