AT&T's Next Chapter: To Be the Industry Leader in 5G

The arrival of 5G—the fifth generation wireless network—in the top right corner of our smartphones in 2019 was highly anticipated. Blazingly fast speeds would allow whole movies to be downloaded in seconds. Virtual reality would become even more real. And our phones might reliably complete a video call without crashing. However, the intervening years have failed to meet that promise. For most consumers, the best feature of 5G is that it’s marginally better than 4G. Starting in 2015, when AT&T embarked on a series of acquisitions to gain subscription TV, media and programmatic advertising capabilities, the 130-year-old telecom giant had high expectations. In part, those deals would help it ride a wave ushered in by the revolution presented by 5G. Reality, as it often does, worked out differently for the boundless enthusiasm that took hold of not just AT&T, but many tech and consumer brands. AT&T still has an optimistic story to tell about itself and 5G—but it’s also spent the past several months unwinding those acquisitions. These changes allow us to really lean into our strength, which is communications.Kellyn Smith Kenny, chief marketing and growth officer, AT&T That’s given Kellyn Smith Kenny, AT&T’s chief marketing and growth officer, the chance to craft a new narrative. It’s one that concludes with AT&T as the leader of a 5G wireless landscape finally worth celebrating. “One of the things that's so important about the spinoff of WarnerMedia and the sale of Xandr is it gives AT&T, as it exists today, an opportunity to be leaner, more agile, more nimble,” Smith Kenny told Adweek during her appearance at the Tribeca Festival this June. AT&T partnered with the festival on the Untold Stories film program, which provides mentorship, distribution and $1 million to filmmakers from underrepresented backgrounds. To reconceptualize AT&T’s brand marketing, Smith Kenny and her team went “deeper and deeper into our heritage—but also with an eye toward the future.” The question the marketing team asked themselves: What does AT&T want to become? The answer was glaringly obvious, Smith Kenny said. “Frankly, these changes allow us to really lean into our strength, which is communications,” she said. “What you'll hear people inside AT&T say today—and we wouldn't have said this a year ago—is we want to be the best broadband connectivity company in America. When we say broadband connectivity, that's 5G, it's fiber. We want to have cutting edge technology that helps people realize the greatest possibilities of this technology.” The daughter of a mathematician and the niece of an artist, Smith Kenny doesn’t see a disconnect between the art and science her current job requires. Still, branding and storytelling was not her first call. As Smith Kenny started to explore all of the territories where AT&T could advance the notion of 5G fulfilling its promise, she and her team took stock of the company’s DNA and went back to its origin story. After putting that together, the strategy homed in on the ultimate question: What do telco customers need? “What we were hearing again and again, is, ‘Boy, this sector can be a little intimidating. It can be a little confusing. It can be a little complicated for customers,’" she said. "People want an undisputed expert in connectivity, a brand that gives them the confidence that they're making the right decision and that it's a service they can rely on. We looked inward and said, ‘We can do that. That's what we've always been about from the beginning.’" A return to its roots 2021 came to a close with AT&T CEO John Stankey jettisoning the non-telco properties it had acquired in the previous 6 years: DirecTV, acquired in 2015 for $49 billion; WarnerMedia for $85 billion in 2018; and Xandr, born from the acquisition of AppNexus, then renamed for AT&T founder Alexander Graham Bell, for an estimated $1 billion also in 2018. The combination of AT&T’s massive scale and consumer data via its mobile and fiber optic networks, tens of millions of subscribers to view programmatic advertising and Hollywood content had all the makings of a virtuous cycle. Each of those three businesses would reinforce the others. At least, that’s how it looked on paper. But AT&T couldn't come up with a clear plan to make it could work. Xandr and WarnerMedia presented natural conflicts. The perfect walled garden AT&T had envisioned was instead a public one that would require more tending than yielding. An emotional connections company From the company that crafted heartwarming ads like the long-running ‘70s and ‘80s-era Reach Out and Touch Someone, Smith Kenny says expect to see marketing messages that dramatize 5G “in the good moments and the hard moments.” This spring, Smith Kenny was with AT&T’s national disaster recovery team, watching the lengths its workers go to restore communications for its customers. “From the middle of forest fires to the middle of hurricanes, superstorms and earthquakes, the job is to get people's connectivity up and running because they know that is their lifeline,” she said. The main challenge is how to show that we can be the brand that rises above all the white noise.Kellyn Smith Kenny, chief marketing and growth officer, AT&T While she wants customers to know about AT&T’s work with first responders through its FirstNet communications system, the main message is letting them know that AT&T is there for them as well. “I have heard story after story of people who have been through terrible ordeals. But they will also say, ‘AT&T was amazing. I was able to call my parents.’ That gives me chills.” T-Mobile Offers International Data and Gas Discounts as Part of New Travel Campaign The numbers game AT&T added more wireless customers in one year, 3.2 million in 2021, than the prior 10 years. Its fiber internet unit is now the fastest growing business line. It added more than 1 million new fiber internet customers and plans to make that service available to 30 million homes by 2025. Since Smith Kenny started in the role two years ago, AT&T has reduced its customer acquisition costs by almost 50%, though she didn’t offer a specific dollar figure. “This year, our advertising effectiveness—as measured by brand and message recall—leads the industry by 70%, which is even more impactful considering we are the third largest spender in the category,” Smith Kenny said. Since the start of the year, AT&T has launched three new “customer-insight driven” ad campaigns designed to show off its new story. The “GIGillionaire” effort for AT&T Fiber drove 7.8 billion impressions across TV, digital, radio and OOH. The company followed up with “Even in the Madness of March” for AT&T 5G. Aside from ensuring attention for its products, its most recent campaign “Push What’s Possible” highlighted its sustainability credentials. The numbers find the Dallas-based company in a fairly strong position to make good on those ambitions, said Ariadna Navarro, chief strategy officer and managing director in New York at marketing consultancy VSA Partners. "AT&T has had eight positive quarters of growth. Returning to its core is not a departure for AT&T. Connectivity is who they are and what they excel at,” Navarro told Adweek. “I’m not sure how many wireless customers knew about the WarnerMedia connection, and at a time when content is so accessible, this partnership didn’t create as much differentiation,” Navarro said, adding, ”I don’t think the simplification of their business will affect how customers view the brand.” The challenge of carrying and caring about 5G Three years after heralding 5G’s emergence, the big three carriers are still serving “low-band” 5G wireless connectivity. In terms of reach, CNET reported T-Mobile serves more than 310 million people with its version of 5G. AT&T is second with more than 255 million people, followed by Verizon’s 230 million. All three have their work cut out for them. From seemingly limitless promotions to sorting out 5G, 5Ge, 5G+, LTE and 4G coverage. “There are so many mixed messages about this technology,” Smith Kenny said. “The main challenge is how to show that we can be the brand that rises above all the white noise and static.” The outlier That's the story Smith Kenny was hired to tell. The position of chief marketing and growth officer at AT&T was created for her. The dual nature of the job is part of an evolving trend. There’s an expectation that storytelling and performance are inextricably linked. It just so happens that those two sides can be found in Smith Kenny’s own personality and career trajectory. The daughter of a mathematician and niece of an artist, Smith Kenny doesn’t see a disconnect between the art and science of her job. Brand marketing was not her first call. Smith Kenny majored in economics and minored in computer science. She's gone from tech consulting at Accenture to product management at Microsoft and Capital One, then shifting in 2016 to marketing leadership roles at Uber followed by a tenure at Hilton. “I'm an outlier,” Smith Kenny said. “I really enjoyed the scientific side. Actually, there's a lot of creativity in computer science. The thing that I didn't enjoy in my roles was I felt like I was so far away from the customer. I felt I was so far away from having the context and the information that would allow me to work on things that were truly impacting outcomes.” Where Smith Kenny's and AT&T's stories intersect is the inescapable link between making connections and maintaining core values. "You need to appeal to so many levels of consumers. There's a universality about this job and this company that brings everything I've learned prior to this moment that I get to bring to bear on how we move forward." 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Branding

After Shedding WarnerMedia, DirecTV and Xandr, Here's How AT&T Will Connect With Customers

Kellyn Smith Kenny dials up the carrier's message

David Kaplan

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David Kaplan