subject: Is Trouble Brewing With The At&t And Comcast Brands? [print this page] Once upon a time AT&T was the strongest brand name in telecom, and the rest of the world for that matter, but that was more than a decade ago. Comcast also has the strongest name in cable television in the US market. With such strength why are they now both reinventing their brand with the Rethink Possible from AT&T and Xfinity from Comcast?
One rule we all know is you don't mess with a brand unless you really need to. If it is successful you don't want to confuse the marketplace. So what is the problem? What are their challenges or opportunities? Will this succeed? And what does this mean for the companies and the brands moving forward?
First it is important to realize the telecom world has changed dramatically over the last decade. We still call it the telecom industry or the cable television industry, but those are old names that no longer really describe this is a new world that is developing.
Is AT&T a company that just sells long distance, or does Comcast just sell cable TV? No of course not. That described them a decade ago. During the last several years we have seen them expand in every direction. They are no longer competing in one sector. Today they are very large companies trying to successfully compete in a variety of sectors. The way we measure success has to change. That is one key reason for the change in brand strategy.
What if a company is very successful in one segment like telephone, but not as successful in another segment like television or any other combination? Today for a company to be successful they need to be that way in all their main categories, telephone, television, wireless and Internet. Consumers and business markets double the confusion.
The industry has changed. Telecom is no longer the same place it was 10 years ago. Back then AT&T competed with MCI and Sprint for long distance, and Comcast was a much smaller plain-old cable television company who didn't compete with anyone.
The last decade has completely transformed both of these companies and blended the industries. Just like I said in an interview several years ago, before long these two different industry segments will blend. We won't call one a cable television company and the other a local phone company. They will be head to head competitors. That is what this change is leading to.
Not only just these two companies, but the entire industry is going to have to address this. That means companies like Verizon and Qwest who is merging with CenturyTel, and Time Warner, Cox and Cablevision face the same pressures. I think we will see them change their brands at some point soon also.
At the same time the industry itself is changed. The challenges, the services, the competition, the market and the opportunities are all new and different. This industry is just as exciting as it was ten years ago, but it is very different.
To make matters worse, it will be just as different five to ten years from today. This is a moving target. Remaining a leader means changing before the industry and leading the way. Frankly this change at AT&T and Comcast took longer than I thought, but now it is occurring.
The AT&T brand has changed. Ten years ago it was the smallest local phone company SBC. Then about five years ago after a series of mergers with AT&T, Bellsouth and Cingular it became the largest in just a few short years. After adopting the AT&T brand they calmed down and let a few years pass.
Now it is time to change things once again. Time to take off the old jacket and put on the new. The curtain came down and the set was being changed over the last few years. Now the curtain is coming up and the next act is starting. It's a whole new world. Not just for one of them, but for the entire industry.
They are setting a new stage for the next several years. These are no longer the kind of companies we remember. They are not just phone companies or cable television companies. They are competitors. More than that they are larger and offer everything and they compete. We used to do business with both, now we can choose one and say goodbye to the other.
Ten years ago the same company may have had more customers, but they bought fewer services. Today these companies have fewer customers, but they buy more services. The model of the industry is changing. The way we measure them has to change.
This impacts investors, customers and workers. So that is why the brand is changing. They know what is going on is bigger than the average customer can understand under the old way of thinking. So the best way to change the thinking is to expand the brand.
AT&T is still keeping the master brand, but the talk is not about the old company of the 1990's, or even the new one of the 2000's. Today the talk is about the company they are turning into.
This gets confusing because the service is not the same for all customers. Only some of their customers can buy television today. However every year that passes we will see more and more.
So AT&T is trying to change the thinking in the marketplace. Trying to get the customer to take the branding visors off and expand their vision. The only way to get customers used to thinking this new way is to start talking about it.
That's what AT&T is starting to do. Same with Comcast and their Xfinity transformation. Customers see ads on television as they try to change their image. What will the other competitors do, and when?
This is a tall order. To change the brand and the meaning of the company in the customers mind as the industry changes. You want to time this right. Lead the change, not follow. We have seen many new products and services during the last several years. That will continue. We may not yet know what the next hot item will be, but we do know it will be under a changed brand.
