The New York Times reported recently that AT&T is releasing a new add campaign. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/business/media/08adco.html?ref=media)This add campaign is much different than many of the other campaigns they have run through the years. Much different than the ads they are running now featuring Luke Wilson. In many of their other ads they advertised a product or a plan. For the new ads they are focusing purely on image. They are uplifting ads that do not have a product or a feature that they are advertising but they are just supposed to be inspirational. Their slogan is "Here's to possibilities". Their goal is to move out of the gloom of the economic downturn and to portray the image of a forward thinking company. In these commercials there will be no products advertised and the company name will not even appear.

The reason why AT&T has decided to spend so much on advertising that does not even promote their product is because they feel that good image is more important than telling people about the company. The Times says this, "as the company battles rivals in the intensely competitive telecommunications category because it can counter the negative effects of ads that use low prices to peddle products and services." Their name is out there. Studies show that almost every American knows the AT&T logo. What they think of the logo is what is important to the company now.

So will this new form of advertising work for AT&T? When I was watching the Olympics I saw one of their ads with the slogan "Here's to possibilities". It was actually my favorite commercial from the Olympics, but when I was talking about it later I could not remember who it was advertising. Many of these large cell phone companies have a bad image but the danger with image commercials is that no one will remember what company made the commercial and only what the commercial was.
Jason