SellPHONESAds: Telecommunica-tions companies are inn k-inga "land grab" for theI ii --I customers, andspending billions of dol-lars in the process.

'U ANDREW RATKLK

Turn on the TV or radio. Drtvealong the IntcnUtc. Open a news-paper or magazine.

They're everywhere, or so It•MHU.

Advertisements for telecommu-nications companies and theirservices — wireless phones, long-distance calling. Internet connec-tions and Web-enabled phones —are hard to miss.

Technology and the deregula-tion of the phone Industry aren'tJust changing the way we commu-nicate with each other. Almostovernight, the field has become amarketing force trying to commu-nicate to us.

AT&T Broadband has Its orblogo that morphs into variousshapes. Verizon Wireless Inc. haspeople (lashing a "V," an update ofthe hand gesture that meantworld-war victory to one genera-tion and peace to another. Clngu-hir Wireless has an animatedorange blob, sort of a cross be-tween a Rorschach tnkblot and thep ! i - 1 > ;r. Doughboy.

Others have signed up Holly-wood personalities as spokesper-sons, such as Jamie Lee Curtis TorVolceStream Wireless Corp, SelaWard for Sprint Corp, and JamesEarl Jones for Verizon Communi-cations Inc.

Dlgex Inc., a Web-hosting com-pany In Beltsvllle that was boughtby WorldCom Inc. last year, usesbasketball star Shaqullle O'Neal InIts ads. Actress Alyssa Mllano ap-pears as the temptress "Eva" In ads

for 1-800-CoUect, and wacky actorDavid Arquetle pitches 1-800-CALL-ATT.

There's a land grab not just fordollars and market share, but forthe best customers" with the mostmoney and staying power, saidMartha RoRers. whose Norwalk.Conn.-based management consult-ing firm, the Peppers and RogersGroup, works with companies suchas AT&T Corp. and Verizon.

"For a long time, all the big ads

In newspapers were retailers.Then, we went through a periodwhen it was all health care — hospi-tals and HMOs. The next big thingIs telecommunications and finan-cial services. We are seeing an evo-lution, and it reflects a competi-tiveness."

The telecommunications Indus-try spent $4.2 billion on advertisinglast year, ranking sixth behind tra-ditional advertisers such a> auto-makers and retail- \SttAdt. *>\

Page4D;Sunday,July8.2001 : The Sun B U S I N E S S

Cingular's 'Jack' a bold bidCompany creates Iconwith personality' toavoid 'blur of sameness'

By ANDREW RAT:

When Clngular Wireless Inc.Jumped on the national stage witha major ad campaign last winter.Its executives acknowledged threeconcerns:

Virtually no one knew of theircompany. It wouldn't b« easy set-ting themselves apart from com-petitors; and technology can be •hardsell.

-We didn't wont to Juil I'-ll bout technology," sold VanceOverby. executive director for ad-vertising and sponsorships for At-lanta-based Clngular. "We wantedto differentiate ourselves fromcold, hard technology.'

To that end, executives re-viewed thousands of names beforesettling on the unusual, but dis-tinctive angular with a "c." to de-scribe their company. It connotesa singular brand formed by BBCCommunications Inc. andBellSouth Corp. from 11 smallerregional companies the two for-merly owned. They also devised"Jack" — their nickname for aJack-

shaped, orange logo, anlmated for TV spots, to pro-mote a theme of "self-ex-pression." The company'ssignature phrase: 'Whatdo you have to say?"

"Our challenge was tocreate advertising that couldbreak through the blur of same-ness in the category." said TedBann, co-chief executive officerand chief creative officer of BBDONew York, which created the cam-paign for Clngular with BBDOSouth In Atlanta. "What betterway to help personalize our com-pany than to create a brand Iconwith personality?"

The company aired Its firstcommercial during a profootball playoff (jnmr, butgained a much lamer au- .dlence weeks later as a co-sponsor of Super BowlXXXV. Baltimore played arole in Clngular's rollout,not only because the Ravenswon. but also because one of thecommercials featured Dan Ke-pllnger, a Towson artist with cere-bral palsy who earlier was the sub-ject ofan Academy Award-winningdocumentary. "King Gimp."

The Kepllnger ad was well-re-ceived In the traditional postgamedissection of the TV ads. but"Jack" drew some guffaws In theadvertising community and

among media critics.The company, however, felt

that the campaign was helping Itstand out In a crowded field. It con-tinued to spend millions on primetime, ponying up an estimated $12million to co-sponsor CBS' "Survi-vor The Australian Outback" se-ries and also sponsoring the half-time shows during college basket-ball's "March Madness "

The consumers are be-coming somewhat capti-vated with the logo. It's afun visual that we believequite effectively repre-sents our message,"Overby said. -We're basi-

cally a as-week-old brand.Our brand awareness Is very

competitive with our competition."The second-largest wireless

carrier In the country, after Veri-zon Wireless, also became a majorsponsor of the Special Olympics asa tie-In to Its "self-expression"theme. The company plans to raisenearly $fi million this year and $40million over the next four years for

the organization. The companyrefers to Itself In promo-

tional material as theonly wireless carrier dedi-cated to enhancing thetools of Individual self-ex-pression" — catchy per-haps, but hard to defineEven comedian Dana

Carvey. not usually at a loss forwords, had trouble describing themessage and "Jack" on CNN InJanuary when the company hiredhim to unveil Its new brand.

"We are from the self-expres-sion people. This little |leR] heremeans self, that means expres-sion. ' Carvey Joked for the newsteam. "Up here Is Just appendagesIn the air for no apparent reasons."

In a wireless world, advertising frenzy\Adi.fnm Page ID]

ers. according to research firmCMR, a Taylor Nelson Bofres Co. InNew York.

That sum was six times theroughly $700 million that tele-phone companies spent In totalmarketing In the mid-1980s afterthe court-ordered breakup of "MaBell." the American Telephone andTelegraph Co.

As late as 1B96. the year Presi-dent Clinton signed the telecom-munications reform act, the sectordidn't merit its own category irvlrf-icrtistng Agfs survey of the top 30Industries In advertising. But tele-communications companiespassed the $3 billion mark In 1868and $4 billion In 2000. Telecomspending on broadcast, print andbillboards ads has grown a thirdfaster than the advertising indus-try as a whole in the past decade,accord tngto CMR.

Those sums dont Include thedot-corn mania, which bid up theprice of Super Bowl alrtlme to un-precedented heights last year be-fore quickly drying up. Half thedot-corns that advertised In tradi-tional media In 2000 have van-ished. Including the whimsicalPets.com sock-puppet mascot.

The spending frenzy hasslowed this year, reflective of ad-vertising In general Ad spendingby telecommunications companieswas down 2 percent for the firstquarter of 2001. compared with thecorresponding period a year ear-lier, according to Robert J. Coen.who writes an Industry newsletterfor Universal McCann, a media-marketing firm In New York.

But Coen and others think theInflux of companies striving to woocustomers who dont know them —and striving to sell products buy-ers aren't convinced they need yet— will have long-term impact. Al-ready, some longtime advertiserssuch as food, toiletries and bever-age sellers have begun slipping,unable to meet the rat« Increasesdriven by lh*w n»w maiu market-ers, Coen wrote In his Industry "In-sider" report last winter.

The impact on billboard spend-ing has also been significant, asanyone who's approached the FortMcHcnry Tunnel on Interstate 93

through Baltimore knows: Everyother billboard Is fora company In-volved In phone service or theInternet.

Telecommunications compa-nies spent 563 million on billboardspace In the first quarter of thisyear, up 11 percent from the com-parable period In 2000. That madeIt the ninth-biggest spender onbillboards, according to the Out-door Advertising Association ofAmerica inc.

The Industry was the fastest-growing purchaser of outdoor adspace In 2000, when Its spendinggrew 40 percent from 1998. Before1998, the Industr/s billboardspending wasnt significantenough to be measured separately.

"It has gotten Incredibly com-petitive." said Diane Clmlne. exec-utive vice president of marketingfor the billboard trade associationin New York. Ten years ago. Ithardly existed It's become verysignificant, especially with tobaccocompanies withdrawing from out-door advertising, because theywere 10 percent of the business."

Marketing In the communica-tions field Isn't new: As earl; as1907. Theodore Vail, then head ofthe Bell System, stressed to share-holders the need for "public rela-tions" to broadcast the company'sworks.

The company's bell-shapedlogo was one of corporate Ameri-ca's most recognizable symbols —Including Its 1969 update by the re-nowned graphic designer SaulBa&s, who also created the logosfor Alfred Hitchcock's movies andthe Olrl Scouts. After the courtsended its monopoly In 1984. AT&Tspent millions to retain long-dis-tance customers with Its 'ReachOut and Touch Someone" cam-paign.

But ad spending has rocketedin recent years as the offspring ofthat Bell divestiture, such as Veri-zon, have begun battling to wincustomers for an array of services,from cheaper long-distance ratesto • ;..•'::•,; '•: < i u : . ; Internet connec-tions.

The challenge for these compa-nies has been twofold, say observ-ers both In and outside the field:First, they must Introduce them-selves to customers, since many

Your Regional Online

are new companies or a combina-tion of older ones operating with anew name. Second, they need toconvince consumers that theyneed the Innovations they're offer-Ing — a hurdle historically for any-one trying to sell a new technology.An Impatient stock market has In-creased the pressure for compa-nies to make themselves and theirnew products known quickly,many say.

Three years ago VolceSlreamWireless signed up Jamie Lee Cur-tis, the actress and recentchildren's author. She turned outto be one of the few constants forthe Bellevue. Wash., company as Itmoved through several mergersthat are Indicative of the continu-ing shakeout in telecommunica-tions. VolceStream was boughtlast month by Deutsche TelekomAO. Europe's largest communica-tions company.

"Prior to her. we were the newkid on the block, going againstAT&T. Sprint, household brandnames with a tot deeper pocket*,"company spokeswoman KimThompson said. "She does visitswith our sales contest winners, shespoke to employees when the com-pany was bought. When she signedon. we were a regional company,and she said she had thought It'llbe fun for a while, but It's grownbigger than she thought It would."

Last year, a commercial de-pleting Curtis in a cocktail dressusing a mobile phone while her carwas disabled won an award fromthe Cellular Telecommunicationsand Internet Association, whichhas begun honoring the commer-cials that have Introduced the nas-cent Industry's products to thepublic.

Verizon Is another companywhose spokesman has outlastedthe original company. When Veri-zon was formed from the merger ofBell Atlantic Corp. and OTE Corp.a year ago, It decided to retainJames Earl Jones. The actor, whostarred In The Great White Hope-In 1B70 and as the rich, baritonevoice of Darth Vader In the "BUrWars" mortes. had done voice-overs and appearances for the for-mer Bell Atlantic dating to YellowPage commercials In the early1990s.

"Once we got approval for themerger, we wanted to gel out of thebox quickly to assure our custom-

ers that everything they knewabout BeD Atlantic and OTEwould stay the same." said JohnBonomo, a spokesman at Verizonheadquarters In New York.

By an odd quirk — and a reflec-tion of the confusion In the market— the company beat Itself to thepunch. Verizon Wireless began TVcommercials before Verizon, theparent company, had won ap-proval for Its own merger. Thesplnoff became known to the pub-lic before the parent.

They got a head start on theuse of the name "Verizon.'"Bonomo explained. "The wirelesspartnership was approved first.and It dldnt make sense to havethem go by the name of Bell Atlan-tic for a few months" until thelarger Verizon merger wentthrough.

Confusion also results from thebet that these companies arespending billions to create a mar-ket, not just to win market share.Households with high-speed Inter-net connections are still rare, andmobile phones were uncommonuntil a few years ago. Yet the com-mercials depict consumers order-ing movie tickets via Internet-en-abled pocket phones or a businesstraveler using a Web-cam to watcha son's soccer game from his hotelroom In a distant city — still akinto science-fiction for most people.

"We hear all this advertising,and it raises our demand for theproduct. We think we must bemissing out on something." saidLynda M. Maddox. professor ofmarketing and advertising atGeorge Washington University InWashington. "We all kind of feelwe're not quite with 11."

With young people historicallymore adaptable to new technology,the companies have been targetingthe 18- to-24 year-old set — andeven younger Verizon sponsoredthe summer concert tour by the-boy band"'NSYNC.

But some industry insiders saythe telecommunications compa-nies, relatively new kids on the ad-vertising block, have a lot to learnwhen It comes to creating brandawareness and marketing buzz.

Said Tom Blebert. communica-tions director for Baltimore adagency Trahan, Burden & CharlesInc.. •Budwelser's "Wassup' guyeand their frogs have It all over theClngular btotch,"