genericom

Originally uploaded by georgeaye.
Have you heard this one? It’s good. It goes like this: a hip young telecom company, we’ll call them Cingular, goes and buys out another much older, staid telecom company, we’ll call them AT&T, and kills off the newly acquired brand. ‘Cause, who really cares about AT&T anyway. It’s so landline.

Cingular then makes a nice new ad campaign ‘informing its users’ of the new change with a nice new logo featuring Cingular’s little blobby fella, and the old Pantone referenced blue of the newly acquired AT&T.
Everyone’s happy. Except all the AT&T customers who are now dumped onto Cingular’s call centres who have no idea what cell phone plans exist from the new 50 millions users on their books.

Then from out of nowhere, a third telecoms company, we’ll call them SBC, goes and buys out Cingular! (Actually, SBC used to be call Ameritech I think.)

But this is the best bit. SBC decides to resurrect the AT&T brand back from the dead, similar to how undead zombies infect all those around them, cursing them to walk the line between the living and eternally damned. You then end up with yet another brand rework (it’s all ‘friendly’ and lower case now) and a whole bunch of people completely confused as to who’s paying who’s bill anymore.

Do you remember in the Bible how people are constantly begetting each other; Moses begat Jacob and he begat Saleh and she begat Salem etc etc. Well the telecoms takeover market sounds just like that.

Come on guys, a new logo does not a brand make. That’s why I’m coining a new term, Brandsturbation. Verb. The constant branding and rebranding of a company after multiple rounds or mergers and acquisitions.

Since it seems all the rage these days, I thought I’d prepare a logo and brand strategy for the inevitable, unannounced, takeover of at&t in 2007.

May I present to you,

“Genericom. We’ve forgotten our own brand, so you don’t have to.”