• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, February 21, 2006

It's not every day you find yourself in bed with three business associates. One or two, sure. But three? The perfect career-killer, right? Perhaps, but not for the reasons you might imagine. The fact is, I recently convinced my bedfellows -- Scott Witt of MediaVest, Anomaly's Johnny Vulkan, and his hired gun Susan Easton -- to join me for a PG-rated chat on the merits of AT&T's "Your world. Delivered" campaign.

We sprawled out at Duvet, a 20,000-square-foot lounge in Manhattan that puts the "rest" in restaurant, because you can feast from any number of harem-friendly mattresses instead of boring old tables. Between the 80,000-gallon aquarium stuffed with moon jellyfish and the South Beach glow emanating from virtually every surface, you half expect Donatella Versace to turn up under the pillows.

AT&T, Inc., formed by SBC Communications' purchase of AT&T Corp., billed its "Your world" campaign as the biggest in the history of either company. Omnicom Group's GSD&M and Rodgers Townsend partnered to deliver a clear message to investors and business and consumer clients alike that AT&T is a 21st century communications company poised to deliver a variety of solutions and services.

The brand advertising, with its grand promise spread over sporty green, blue, and orange backdrops, includes some 20 customized executions. ESPN.com viewers, for example, were hit with "Your playoffs. Delivered," while WSJ.com readers saw "Your stocks. Delivered." In January, roadblocks dominated the most prominent homepages on the Web, including Yahoo, MSN, AOL, CNN.com, WSJ.com, and NYTimes.com.

With our feet parallel to our heads, our discussion ranged from AT&T's new logo, to the dilemma of trying to please distinct constituencies, to the importance of backing up big promises. Excerpts follow.

Johnny Vulkan: To start on a bad note, the first element of letdown was the logo. It's changed, but I don't really know to what value or to what end. It feels like it's slightly trendier, which sets them up to have to refresh again in a couple years. It's gone bubblier and more rendered, which feels very of the moment.

Susan Easton: Or of a couple years ago!

[Laughter.]

Scott Witt: To me, it shows there's not enough of a change. I mean, it's 3D-ized and you've got a new typeface.

Easton: It's a really hard thing to do when you have a merger, to put out a new value system or reintroduce it. I'm just a little surprised at how quiet the message is, and how difficult it is to interpret.

Vulkan: You can see the importance of it to Wall Street and the announcement of the merger from a business perspective. I think to the broader consumer, it's not very interesting or compelling. And if you look at the interesting companies of the last 6, 7, or 8 years, like Google, their marketing is done through action. So if AT&T and SBC are about "my world delivered," it begs the question, "How, exactly?" The message feels like it's something out of an '80s or '90s advertising campaign without any substance.

Easton: I think it's an interesting concept, "Your world. Delivered," depending on how they deliver it. But, to your point, Johnny, it rings as not true, or empty, unless we understand what that means.

Witt: I think it's cool how they've adapted the tag-line to the environment: "Your games. Delivered," "Your videos. Delivered." I get that. While I think "Your world. Delivered" is a bit vapid, I think they've scaled it in an interesting way.

[Vulkan expands on the notion of two audiences: investors and consumers.]

Vulkan: It feels to me there's a requirement to reassure investors -- two great companies are coming together to do something greater. But, as a consumer looking in on this, it just doesn't tell me anything profound, and I'm left with my old memories of AT&T. I think we're in a world now where action is greater than advertising.

Easton: I think Sprint's done a really nice job of starting to help consumers understand what the next generation of cell phones is about, and what the services are about. It seems very premature, the AT&T promise, "Your world. Delivered," because we don't know what it is right now.

[Witt draws our attention to an ad on the laptop that we're sharing.]

Witt: I'm with you 100 percent. The major call to action on the display advertising is "click here to learn more about the merger," which to me says everything about kowtowing to Wall Street and financial constituents and not your consumers, which naturally begs the question: Why would this necessitate a robust consumer campaign on sites like Yahoo? There are a lot of touch points here where the consumer is going to be saying, "Okay, next."

Easton: It's a huge media buy. They've inundated the market, but without a strong message, just a brand imprint. It doesn't seem to be delivering their promise in an interesting way.

Witt: I'm still not sure what the promise is. It leaves a lot to be desired, but unfortunately I don't think the hook in the body copy is compelling enough to make you want to stick around and find out what Chapter 2 is going to be about.

Vulkan: It's a very old-fashioned way to approach media, but sometimes a big spend suggests confidence. By virtue of being in a lot of places, there's a suggestion of presence and success. I think AT&T has to overcome the perception that they were the big behemoth phone company that faltered when it was time to move into the mobile market, and struggled to embrace technology. SBC is the sexier brand, and they missed an opportunity to use that here.

Witt: It's almost like Lexus and Oldsmobile have merged, and "Now we're the new Oldsmobile!"

[Laughter]

Vulkan: "But we're not your father's Oldsmobile!"

[Laughter]

Witt: There was so much more they could have demonstrated online to tease out the premise. There's an opportunity for a conversation to start, which I'm sure will happen at some point.

Easton: In this world, you can't have a tagline that powerful and not deliver something.