AT&T phasing out Cingular brand

After recently acquiring Cingular it has emerged that AT&T are to drop the Cingular brand according to ZDNet. Cingular is the current largest mobile phone group in the United States with 58 million subscribers to their mobile services. Dropping a brand as strong as Cingular is a big step, and a big risk.

The plan is to phase out the Cingular brand, which has been built up after multi-billion dollar ad spends, in separate phases. The first phase will involve co-branding everything from ads to statements with both the AT&T and Cingular logo. AT&T say they will listen to customer reaction as they continue to phase out the Cingular brand entirely.

“We did not enter that decision lightly. We came to understand that consumer customers and business customers alike are looking for a single provider. We heard it so consistently across the marketplace,” said Wendy Clark, vice president of advertising at AT&T, in an interview.

Whether Cingular’s younger demographic will sit well with AT&T rather older image remains to be seen. Cingular are the exclusive provider for the new Apple iPhone, a new hybrid iPod / mobile phone with integrated WiFi, EDGE and Bluetooth. While Apple are having issues with their product naming, it will be interesting to see how this name change affects their deal if at all.