Branding the Mega-Brand (Part one of two)

As 2006 has moved half way through its second month, AT&T has continued to establish itself as a “new” player in the international communication category.

SBC and AT&T should have taken a lesson from the former Bell Atlantic Corp. and GTE Corp, not to say that they have done anything wrong, yet. Official joining in July of 1998 and formally taking the Verizon name on April 3rd 2000. This major merger of two multi-billion dollar international companies created Verizon as it is known today. This was done on many fronts, but two stand out. The first was the choice of a name. Because neither of the former companies had a name on which to build a mega-brand, a new name was chosen, Verizon. A good choice, clear, denotes opportunity, and contains and draws from a well know, positive root word. Breaking the new name down further, it has three syllables and is in a single word form. This makes for the brand name to roll off the tongue of consumers being short and to the point, while there isn’t the chance that some executive down the line will attempt to shorten the name into abbreviations (as one of it predecessors had the ill fate of, in addition to the topic brands SBC and AT&T).

The second success of Verizon’s mega-brand building experience was establishing itself as the “Network.” Targeting this position in the market allowed Verizon to capture the market of frustrated consumers who were having difficulty during the times of old analog wireless networks. Taking this word and essentially replacing it with the mega-brand name Verizon created the key recognition in the industry. Regardless of actual network dependability, consumers began to equate Verizon as the wireless carrier with the best coverage.

To be continued…