AT&T Uses Apple "Cool Kid v Loser" Ads

For those who are not on the uptake, Cingular is owned by SBC/now AT&T Inc and Bell South. The Cingular brand was created to take over the AT&T brand and drop all the bad perceptions around the brand. $4bn has been spent on building Cingular and now someone high up has decided 'um, nup, i have changed my mind. lets go back to at&t.' Personally, it just seems absolutely rooted in absurdity. But whatever.

Anyway, back to my point. I am a huuuge March Madness fan. I am sitting here watching Wisconsin try to fight off UNLV... and its not looking good for the Badger or my bracket. So, AT&T have taken a huge inventory sponsorship on this CBS coverage and they have been running the same cool kid v loser/embarassing person strategy that Mac have been using.

You have see the Apple v PC ads. They get a young cool/connected/up with it kid to play Mac and a loser/past used by date guy to represent PC. So they create this personality for Mac that feels sorry for PC. Which is an even bigger insult than picking a straight fight. "I am not angry, I just feel sorry for you'"

AT&T are doing the same thing in their spots. They have created the ultra cool/trendy/connected young asian guy. The kinda guy you would look to to be all over things like which phone you should get. So he is obviously the AT&T guy. Then we have the Sprint guy. They really over do it here. In one spot he has ice cream over his face. In another the AT&T guy is on the phone to one of his cooool friends when he tosses a ball like you would for a dog. Of course, Sprint guy bounces away to go fetch.

Maybe we will see the McDonalds v Burger King kid next....