AT&T's Brand Odyssey Takes An Olympic Turn

AT&T's journey from 100-year-old consumer brand to 21st-century business market player takes it to the opening ceremonies of the 2004 Summer Games in Athens. On Friday, the telcom will launch a $50 million-plus effort, its first since declaring its intent last month to get out of the consumer-advertising business. The campaign opens with three versions of a spot from WPP Group's Young & Rubicam, New York, that star the most famous one-trick pony in Greek history. One 30- and two 60-second versions featuring the Trojan horse mark the second phase of AT&T's media reincarnation as a business specialist. (The client launched a $200 million campaign at the beginning of the year touting itself as "the world's networking specialist.") The creative execution, naturally, is "perfect timing, and it's fun," said ecd Ann Hayden, adding, "It's a great symbol for threats that can happen and for security on the net." (Coincidentally, a Trojan horse is also a type of computer virus.)Short and long versions of "Troy Olympic" begin with the nose of a giant wooden horse appearing from behind a building and moving down a busy street. On its journey, the animal passes people in various locales while a voiceover provides sardonic narration. When it passes an industrial factory, for example, the narrator says, "I need to look at your data. I hear there's data in there." As the horse's wheel passes a man with a computer on the porch of his house, the narrator notes, "I have critical information from the main office ... and candy." On a busy London street, a cop on a real horse ducks the wooden wheel as a woman near a phone booth looks up and the viewer hears, "Lower your mortgage. Meet girls. Grow hair." Another :60, titled "Troy Golf," shows the horse lumbering over a golf course, as the narrator intones, "Just playing through." All the spots end with zeroes and ones forming a binary gate whose walls come down and trap the horse on all sides. The ads end with the claim: "Detect, isolate and eliminate virtually any security threat before it becomes a security breach," along with the question, "Can your network do this? It can with the world's networking company—AT&T." "We are matching our brand strategy with our business strategy," said AT&T ecd Connie Weaver. "Historically, people think [of AT&T as] long distance or voice, but in reality it's all about the network, moving data and voice in integrated ways to enable business to do transactions." Weaver noted that the telcom has more than 3 million customers, including every Fortune 1000 company. She said there are no plans to add or subtract to the agency roster at the moment. "We've been working with Y&R in a very, very close relationship," she said. Weaver explained that the "Troy" effort "is not limited to the Olympics, but also print, online and [other] TV." The horse is "probably going to show up on your desktop, on that little thing they call the Internet and in some other media as well," Hayden added. AT&T's consumer-services business revenue was down $2 billion in the second quarter, almost 15 percent below the comparable period a year earlier. "This is a strategic retreat being done for some very good reasons," said Bank of America Securities analyst David Barden. Of course, AT&T won't be unchallenged in the business market, either. Competitors with the strength to service both segments will start to focus on business, predicted Page Thompson, CEO of Cingular media agency OMD North America. Commenting on the industry generally, not on Cingular specifically, Thompson said, "Where's the high-margin business? After having focused on consumers, it's natural to go to b-to-b."

Brand Marketing

AT&T's Brand Odyssey Takes An Olympic Turn

Sandy Brown

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