Bye Bye Cingular... for good.

[thinkkre8tiv]

http://adweek.com/aw/national/article_disp...t_id=1002426397

Cingular is set to be one of the great brands that is going to drift into recent memory soon. Check it out and let me know what you guys think.

I will miss Jack.

[Mac the Knife]

Cingular's not exactly an icon... the name's been around maybe, maybe a decade.

AT&T's the much stronger brand, and I don't blame 'em a bit if they use it.

I always thought the switch to BellSouth was lame though, as its predecessor name had a better ring to it (pardon the pun): Southern Bell...

[HurricaneDavid]

Hilarious. When I got my first cell phone, it was on AT&T Wireless. Then it switched to Cingular, and now they are apparently switching back to AT&T. What a colossal waste of money and effort.

[andrewharrington]

AT&T's the much stronger brand, and I don't blame 'em a bit if they use it.

Not for wireless. The Cingular name and logo are undoubtedly more associated with wireless communication than the AT&T name and logo.

[Mac the Knife]

AT&T's the much stronger brand, and I don't blame 'em a bit if they use it.

Not for wireless. The Cingular name and logo are undoubtedly more associated with wireless communication than the AT&T name and logo.

Uh... you realize that what is now Cingular at one point was AT&T Wireless, right?

[Tazz013]

AT&T's the much stronger brand, and I don't blame 'em a bit if they use it.

Not for wireless. The Cingular name and logo are undoubtedly more associated with wireless communication than the AT&T name and logo.

Uh... you realize that what is now Cingular at one point was AT&T Wireless, right?

Cingular acquired AT&T Wireless (which was not a part of AT&T) back in 2004. Cingular was never AT&T Wireless.

If they decide to drop the Cingular name, they can kiss their NASCAR sponsorship goodbye. When NEXTEL because the title sponsor "Cingular" and "Alltel" were grandfathered in, a different name means they would have to leave.

[gbasalmon]

AT&T's the much stronger brand, and I don't blame 'em a bit if they use it.

Not for wireless. The Cingular name and logo are undoubtedly more associated with wireless communication than the AT&T name and logo.

Uh... you realize that what is now Cingular at one point was AT&T Wireless, right?

Cingular acquired AT&T Wireless (which was not a part of AT&T) back in 2004. Cingular was never AT&T Wireless.

If they decide to drop the Cingular name, they can kiss their NASCAR sponsorship goodbye. When NEXTEL because the title sponsor "Cingular" and "Alltel" were grandfathered in, a different name means they would have to leave.

Odd illustration of this point - the Cingular store that I got my phone from in Niagara Falls, New York was directly across the street from the AT&T Wireless store. When the merger happened, the Cingular store closed and moved across the street and the AT&T store became the Cingular store. And now apparently it will be an AT&T store again. I hope they kept the signage in storage...

[Mac the Knife]

AT&T's the much stronger brand, and I don't blame 'em a bit if they use it.

Not for wireless. The Cingular name and logo are undoubtedly more associated with wireless communication than the AT&T name and logo.

Uh... you realize that what is now Cingular at one point was AT&T Wireless, right?

Cingular acquired AT&T Wireless (which was not a part of AT&T) back in 2004. Cingular was never AT&T Wireless.

If they decide to drop the Cingular name, they can kiss their NASCAR sponsorship goodbye. When NEXTEL because the title sponsor "Cingular" and "Alltel" were grandfathered in, a different name means they would have to leave.

Actually, Cingular didn't acquire anyone... AT&T Wireless and Vodafone merged to form Cingular. AT&T Wireless customers were subsequently 'switched' over to Cingular, as were what few Vodafone users in the U.S. there were.

It's a matter of semantics anyway - they're going with AT&T, and they should.

[SouthSidePride]

this is a joke to me. I had At&t, and then was forced to switch to cingular, when they became one entity. I never had a problem with AT&T, they were always helpful and fair, but when I went to get a new phone from cingular, they were plain mean to me. They baraded me for not having a more hip phone, and then pressured me into buying their top of the line. I chose a cheaper model, and they said because it had a camera, they had to charge 20 bucks a month for photo sending, regardless of whether or not i send any photos. I just walked accross the street to T-Mobile, and have been a happy and satisfied customer ever since. They treat me like the old AT&T people used to. Cingular gets what it deserves.

[Geoff]

No on had to switch over. My dad was bugged to hell cause he had and has AT&T wireless and after a while they stopped bothering him. Looks like he's gonna be back on AT&T Wireless and if he decides to switch to Cingular I'm just gonna tell him to keep being lazy.

[Fyrwulf]

Eh, the situation is more convoluted than that. AT&T spun off their wireless branch, which was acquired by Cingular, then AT&T was acquired by SBC, then SBC decided to use the AT&T brand, and now SBC (under the cover of AT&T) has acquired Cingular. In short, SBC is the telecommunicatiosn juggernaught.

[ZBoyer]

If they decide to drop the Cingular name, they can kiss their NASCAR sponsorship goodbye. When NEXTEL because the title sponsor "Cingular" and "Alltel" were grandfathered in, a different name means they would have to leave.

What's all this talk about NASCAR? NEXTEL is owned by Sprint now, not by Cingular.

[BadSeed84]

And now apparently it will be an AT&T store again. I hope they kept the signage in storage...

Well did you forget that AT&T changed their logo a tad? to be at&t (lowercased) and the sphere is different.

so most likely whatever the logo for at&t wirless is, will have the new logo

[Tazz013]

If they decide to drop the Cingular name, they can kiss their NASCAR sponsorship goodbye.  When NEXTEL because the title sponsor "Cingular" and "Alltel" were grandfathered in, a different name means they would have to leave.

What's all this talk about NASCAR? NEXTEL is owned by Sprint now, not by Cingular.

Cingular sponsors the #31 car. NEXTEL's contract with NASCAR has exclusivity rights, but since there were a couple wireless companies already sponsoring teams, they were grandfathered in. The name change would break the exclusivity contract, so they would have to leave.

AT&T's the much stronger brand, and I don't blame 'em a bit if they use it.

Not for wireless. The Cingular name and logo are undoubtedly more associated with wireless communication than the AT&T name and logo.

Uh... you realize that what is now Cingular at one point was AT&T Wireless, right?

Cingular acquired AT&T Wireless (which was not a part of AT&T) back in 2004. Cingular was never AT&T Wireless.

If they decide to drop the Cingular name, they can kiss their NASCAR sponsorship goodbye. When NEXTEL because the title sponsor "Cingular" and "Alltel" were grandfathered in, a different name means they would have to leave.

Actually, Cingular didn't acquire anyone... AT&T Wireless and Vodafone merged to form Cingular. AT&T Wireless customers were subsequently 'switched' over to Cingular, as were what few Vodafone users in the U.S. there were.

It's a matter of semantics anyway - they're going with AT&T, and they should.

Cingular Wireless was formed by SBC (60%) and BellSouth (40%) from the ground up in 2001.

In 2004 Vodafone put in a bid for AT&T Wireless, but Cingular outbid them and took control on Oct 16, 2004. Since then, SBC has also taken over AT&T (Nov 2005) and more recently BellSouth (March 2006) (thus also getting full control of Cingular) which opened the door for re-branding Cingular.

Vodafone is a European company that owns ~45% of Verizon wireless, their US subscribers are theirs by means of Verizon Wireless service.

[HedleyLamarr]

If they decide to drop the Cingular name, they can kiss their NASCAR sponsorship goodbye.  When NEXTEL because the title sponsor "Cingular" and "Alltel" were grandfathered in, a different name means they would have to leave.

What's all this talk about NASCAR? NEXTEL is owned by Sprint now, not by Cingular.

Cingular sponsors the #31 car. NEXTEL's contract with NASCAR has exclusivity rights, but since there were a couple wireless companies already sponsoring teams, they were grandfathered in. The name change would break the exclusivity contract, so they would have to leave.

Aren't the poll questions on Fox sponsored by and run through Cingular?

[oddball]

If they decide to drop the Cingular name, they can kiss their NASCAR sponsorship goodbye.  When NEXTEL because the title sponsor "Cingular" and "Alltel" were grandfathered in, a different name means they would have to leave.

What's all this talk about NASCAR? NEXTEL is owned by Sprint now, not by Cingular.

Cingular sponsors the #31 car. NEXTEL's contract with NASCAR has exclusivity rights, but since there were a couple wireless companies already sponsoring teams, they were grandfathered in. The name change would break the exclusivity contract, so they would have to leave.

Of course that's if AT&T wants to go Cup racing, they could always sponsor a Busch car or Truck, because Nextel only has a exclusivity with the Cup series. As far as the Cingular questions, that's FOX and not NASCAR and it's basically a commercial... hey wait a minute, NASCAR's just one big commercial! *LOL* I've known that for a while, just incase anyone was wondering! *s*

[VC//]

Hilarious. When I got my first cell phone, it was on AT&T Wireless. Then it switched to Cingular, and now they are apparently switching back to AT&T. What a colossal waste of money and effort.

When i went to Cali last year in april, it went from Cingular to AT&T and then it would be Cingular again...it kept going back n forth, i found that to be a little odd and my stupid cell would keep giving me an indicator about my service changing, beep beep beep every 10minutes, till i turned it off, but i liked to know when i was out of service range.

[andrewharrington]

AT&T's the much stronger brand, and I don't blame 'em a bit if they use it.

Not for wireless. The Cingular name and logo are undoubtedly more associated with wireless communication than the AT&T name and logo.

Uh... you realize that what is now Cingular at one point was AT&T Wireless, right?

Yes, I realize that. What I'm saying is that Cingular is huge, and has been since its creation. When BellSouth and SBC created the Cingular brand, they combined 11 existing wireless brands, and it quickly the second-largest wireless entity in the United States.

Sure, AT&T has always been associated with telephone service, but it's not known as a wireless brand by the general public, which Cingular is, along with brands like Verizon, Nextel, T-Mobile, et al. The older companies, like AT&T, BellSouth, and Sprint just aren't as associated with wireless as their newer subsidiaries.

Thus, AT&T is not a stronger brand for wireless, in my opinion, because it has to be heavily marketed to become a 'wireless' brand, whereas Cingular already is, and always has been. AT&T was a 'regular' telephone company for more than a century before wireless even existed. That's what people associate it with, even though it's the country's biggest wireless provider since the merger with SBC.

And for a real-life example to illustrate my point, I know may people with Cingular and Verizon service, a handful who have Sprint, and very few who have T-Mobile. I don't know one person who has AT&T Wireless service.

[Blackjack76]

FYI...Verizon started as a landline telecomm in New York state before they went to wireless.

Tazz has the Cingular timeline dead right...I used to work for them. The money Cingular spent on branding only would rebuild New Orleans....

[BigShoop]

Aren't the poll questions on Fox sponsored by and run through Cingular?

Ever seen a Verizon commercial? or Verizon ANYTHING during a nascar broadcast?......

Same situation. Once Cingular is gone, they're gone.