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AT&T reaches out to potential customers with flurry of ads, deals(San Antonio Express-News (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) May 25--Those old SBC Communications Inc. ads narrated by Tommy Lee Jones served their purpose. But the telecommunications giant -- now called AT&T Inc. -- will be the first to say they just don't cut it anymore. Faced with competition from cable companies, the former monopoly once known for its conservative TV ads has swapped the actor for tie-ins with movies such as Disney/Pixar's animated feature "Cars," which opens next month. Alongside its recent $500 million campaign to unveil its new name and logo, San Antonio-based AT&T has added a bevy of promotional offers, some cutting-edge and others drawing on proven consumer marketing ploys. "If you go back to years past, network advertising was the big way of reaching people," said Mikal Harn, AT&T vice president of consumer marketing. "Now, a lot of the people we're trying to reach are more likely to see our message doing Internet searches. We've got to reach people in a wide variety of ways, and we need to give people a reason to listen to us." To be sure, it has been difficult to turn on the TV, open a newspaper or click on an Internet page without seeing some sort of AT&T ad or promotion: Ads during NBA playoff games tout streaming video on the company Web site that features basketball players showing off their favorite tech gadgets. It now dispatches CompUSA employees to the homes of DSL customers to set up networking devices. The company has launched an ultrafast version of its DSL service -- up to four times faster than its basic broadband access -- for an introductory price of $29.99 a month. Experts said AT&T is reaching out to a broad spectrum of customers who range from a basic phone customer mulling an upgrade to DSL to a tech-savvy household interested in taking a full suite of its services. The company is in a neck-and-neck race with cable companies such as Time Warner to persuade customers to sign up for a bundle of services -- phone, video, high-speed Internet and wireless communications. "This is all brand new territory -- we're seeing a test," said Jeff Kagan, an independent telecom analyst based in Atlanta. "Telecommunications companies are testing a variety of ways of approaching their customer because you can't reach them all the same way. This is a whole new world, and they're going to have to try a lot of different approaches." Some work, and some don't. The company ran a successful ad campaign starting in late 2004 that linked its broadband service to the highly successful animated move "The Incredibles." Less successful, however, were its ads that tied in to last summer's flop "Fantastic Four." "We're constantly trying to learn from our mistakes," Harn said. "We're continuing to improve." But marketing experts said AT&T appears to be on the right track with its recent emphasis on promotions. Offers of discounted service or introductory trial periods let consumers test new services at a lower price -- and perhaps become hooked. "With services like TiVo out there and the sheer amount of advertising clutter, you just can't reach people in the same old ways," said Joe Duffy, chairman of Minneapolis-based ad firm Duffy & Partners. "(Promotions) are another way to bring somebody into the band franchise." One such example was AT&T's decision this year to trim its introductory DSL price to $12.99 a month. By lowering the cost of its DSL access to the price of dial-up service, the company is making only minimal profit, analysts said. Some customers, however, may want a taste of higher-speed -- and higher-cost -- surfing. "That's a marketing technique that goes back to the early '60s," said Daniel Howard, chairman of the marketing department at Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business. "Companies use it because it works." |