Our work with AT&T began with a project to clean up the old AT&T globe logo and grew into a long-term relationship that extended across online brand management and decision tools, co-branding strategies, and brand licensing.

Situation

As the world’s premier voice, video and data communications company, AT&T serves consumer, business and government customers around the world. Backed by the R&D capabilities of AT&T Labs, the company runs the world’s largest, most sophisticated communications network. Customers, distributors and the global network of partners all sought permission to leverage AT&T’s reputation through co-branding.

When AT&T was restructured as six separate businesses, the operating units all needed to use the AT&T corporate brand appropriately and consistently, and the new system of AT&T business brands would have to be implemented and maintained globally.

Solution

First, a consistent visual signature system was created to unify all AT&T-branded businesses. A family of co-brand signatures was also created to endorse a defined set of strategic, third-party co-branding relationships. We built an online “AT&T Brand Center” for managing the brand assets, accessible from anywhere via the Internet or intranet. In addition to standards and guidelines, the Brand Center incorporates proprietary interactive tools, including:

• Signature downloader­­ — An automated program for selecting and downloading approved AT&T signature artwork.
• Co-branding decision tool — An online decision tree of simple yes/no questions for evaluating potential co-branding opportunities.

Employees and authorized business partners have access to essential artwork and tools for effectively implementing and managing the comprehensive AT&T identity system, and AT&T leverages co-branding partners to promote its own brand to targeted audiences.