Terrific article on the rise and fall of AT&T Wireless. It's a shame to see a strong brand like AT&T driven into the ground through poor execution. But this is a good example of a recent post on brand management that advocates not to take brand equity for granted.
Former McCaw Cellular executive Bill Malloy remembered that around 1992, when the company got into the discussions with AT&T Corp. about some form of cooperation, McCaw employees' excitement at that prospect revolved around AT&T's "revered" brand."We just saw this great opportunity that if you ever took on this brand of AT&T and attached it to wireless, you'd just live out the dream: to become absolutely the wireless company that customers stayed with and trusted," he said.
"So when you ask, are you disappointed (with this outcome), well, absolutely, you are, because I never wanted to see AT&T Wireless go away. That's just not the way you would have wanted to end the movie."
As a former employee of Winstar Telecom, the death of a brand can be too unkind. When they went bankrupt in 2001, the brand was acquired by IDT. But it has not been rescued.
Posted by: Robb Hecht | October 13, 2004 at 01:32 PM
Very nice blog :)
My brand Mantra : sincerity.
Concerning death of a brand I've the impression that a lot of big brand/companies may disappear in the next following years.
It seems to me that the new economy is comming with new values, new brands.
A brand should be an invitation. Where costumers ask for "romance", the old fashioned companies are "rude".
Posted by: laurent bervas | October 02, 2004 at 02:22 AM
Bill is a good friend and a very perceptive guy. It really is just plain old too bad for this brand. What a missed opportunity.
Posted by: johnza | September 25, 2004 at 10:59 AM