• by Aaron Baar , January 12, 2016

When consumers think about “networks” these days, it’s more than just their social circle or wireless carrier. It’s everything they encounter and interact with.

In keeping with the times, AT&T is launching a new marketing campaign touting its history and experience building networks to match consumers’ (and businesses’) needs. In a television spot launching during the College Football Championship game on Monday night, the company demonstrates how it has evolved to create “Your Network,” that includes phones, television, cars and the Internet of Things.

“We are now a very different company than we were a year ago,” Val Vargas, vice president of advertising and marketing communications, tells Marketing Daily. “The assets we have and experience we can provide is unmatched, and the end result is a service that allows you to be unique and connect all the facets of your life.”

The 60-second television commercial (from agency BBDO NY) begins with Alexander Graham Bell uttering the first telephoned words to his assistant (“Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.”). “It started with a single connection, and the network was born,” says a voiceover as the scene shifts to ’50s-era phone operators and then to an ’80s-era line of office phones (and brick-sized cellular phones). As the voiceover notes that the network has become one of “human necessity,” it asserts that “AT&T has built a network just for you.” The scenes shift to modern times, where people are ushered through a rooftop party via a tablet, in modern corporate offices, watching tablets in their cars and operating smart-home devices with their phones. “It grows as you grow: extending your reach to be closer to what you need and the people you love,” the voiceover says. “Because you are still evolving, so are we, with a network that is invented and reinvented every day to work for you.” The spot ends with a fingerprint that turns into AT&T’s globe logo and its “Mobilizing Your World” tagline.

“Through the campaign and focusing on users’ unique experiences that are powered by the network, we show that we are best able to enable your connected life,” Vargas says. “The campaign’s breadth allows us to create more targeted messages, from home automation to DirecTV to connected cars, through the individual stories we tell.”

The campaign will also include print and digital executions (to run in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today), and a revamped corporate home page.