Merging brands is a tricky business. Recently AT&T and SBC announced that they’ll be joining forces as at&t. This kind of merger is bound to cause anxiety in customers, and only complicates things given the size of AT&T and SBC. I mean, do they really need to be any bigger?
This challenge is left to the agencies: How do you tell your customers that everything is going to be all right? You send them a friendly green postcard with their bill:
You’ve trusted us in the past. We’re going to amaze you in the future.
At SBC we’ve always worked hard to earn your trust, to come through whenever you’ve needed us. Now that we’ve brought in the global resources of AT&T, we’ll be there more than ever. We’re creating the most complete and secure network to deliver what matters in your world along with the products and services you need to make the most of it. Introducing the new AT&T. Powered by SBC.
There are a number of reasons I don’t like this copy, but to start off with: it’s not specific at all. I mean, imagine you didn’t know about the merger (entirely possible to average Joe public). So you get this green piece of paper in the letter with your mail, but what the heck does it mean?
Let’s put the facts together from the letter itself:
- SBC has acquired AT&T’s resources
- We’re going to amaze you with “what matters in your world”
- Introducing the new AT&T
- Powered by SBC?
I know that some copywriter probably slaved over this piece for days, maybe weeks. But the simple fact is: I don’t like it. It’s not the specific words, but the direction. The vague, “we’ll solve your problems” and the confusing mixing of SBC, AT&T and at&t in the copy and marks on the page. It sounds very corporate, very cold, very distant. In fact, if anything it makes me worry. If they are busy “amazing me” (let’s face it–my phone company isn’t going to amaze me) and gobbling up companies, do they really care what matters to me? If they do, what is it and how are they delivering what matters most to me?
More importantly, the piece never says AT&T and SBC are merging. The copy leaves you wondering. Something is surely happening with SBC & AT&T, but what exactly? Is AT&T joining as a contracting partner? I think a simple graphic of the SBC logo, a plus sign, the old AT&T logo, an equal’s sign and the new at&t logo would have done wonders. It would have made the average Joe go “Ohhh.. I get it now.” Instead they’ll probably throw the card away wondering what kind of new drugs their phone company is on this month.
A comparison
Another, albeit much smaller, merger recently has been the TextDrive & Joyent merger. I’ve always loved TextDrive because of the human aspect of their brand, and it shows through their announcement. Here’s snippet:
TextDrive has merged with Joyent, Inc., and it’s good news for all concerned. We’re tickled pink, and I’ll explain why.
…
What’s changing at TextDrive? Nothing, really: we’ll continue strong with shared hosting, and now also ramp up our dedicated and business hosting lines. Other than getting more disk space and bandwidth, current customers can expect things to be just as before, with all the improvements we’ve been discussing proceeding as planned. VC lifetime accounts will of course continue to be honoured, because TextDrive is still TextDrive.
That’s what I love. Tight explanation: TextDrive is merging with Joyent. None of this brining in resources, powered by or otherwise affiliated with. They lay it out: what’s changing, how will you be effected, and will the company be transforming into an evil monster. At a glance this copy serves its point while exciting customers. The at&t copy, not so much.
So, I’ll leave this one up to my (3) readers out there: which one do you feel more connected to? Do you like the promise-the-world copy of at&t? Or the down-to-earth copy of TextDrive?
pam·phlet: An unbound printed work, usually with a paper cover.
A short essay or treatise, usually on a current topic, published without a binding.
Ah yes. I haven’t become a human dictionary quite yet. Perhaps in time.
Interesting site, Kyle. You misspelled “challenge” in the second paragraph. Not trying to be nitpicky, but your last post admonished web writers to use a spell checker! : )
Yes Brian, for some reason my spell checker didn’t catch that.
However, you (and Carl) seem to have missed my point. Nowhere did I say every word on the page must be hand-checked, run through a dictionary and voted on by committee. I was referring to the sites that run spelling and grammatical errors every few words. Not once in 700 words. There’s a big difference there
Until someone volunteers to be my personal assistant and/or editor there will be spelling errors on this site. I can only be human.
Hi - great article, and I think that this post disproves your estimations on the number of readers you have!
I’m with you all the way. A very interesting article indeed.
I’m getting increasingly fed up with being treated like this by big companies - especially when communications lack transparency.
Kyle, please don’t be defensive — we all make mistakes.
Don’t ever defend a mistake with bullshit. Mistakes do make you human, and people like humans. Just say, “oops… thanks!” and keep on.
But plenty of people write and publish thousands and thousands of words without typos, editors or assistants. They’re called bloggers, and luckily computers are damn good at catching mistakes before we let them out there.
However, there are several instances where great copywriters have inserted typos on purpose — even turning finding them into a contest that guaranteed the copy would be read.
So… make oyur mistakes on purpose.
Hmmmm. I very much doubt that. Show me the ad agency that schedules in days or weeks to write copy for a postcard and I’ll give up copywriting tomorrow. That’s an hour’s job. Two or three at the most. A half day if you’re lucky.
Secondly, most corporate copy like that is generally client-led from the start. True, a copywriter will kick things off with a nice headline and some reasonably decent body copy (given the brief), but it all goes tits up when the client decides that they’re a better writer than the copywriter after all, and does a hatchet job on it.
It generally stems from the client not really knowing what (or how much) they want to say in the first place, and the fact that virtually any piece of copy, large or small, needs to be approved by a huge marketing and comms team (and meet stringent brand guidelines) before they even think about pushing it live. I suspect that this was the case for your AT&T example.
Now for TextDrive. Smaller, faster moving company. Different kind of customers. No need for 30 guys in suits to approve copy before it goes live. No opressive brand guidelines to follow. They have the option of making their announcement on a blog rather than on a postcard with an ‘x’ million print run.
And that’s always going to be the problem for copywriters. Creating good copy doesn’t just depend on the writer. More often than not, it depends on the client.
Exactly my point there Barry. When I referred to “weeks” I was talking about the whole schebang. The writing, the review, the revising, etc, etc. Of course pouring 60 some odd hours into something that small is unreasonable, but it’s entire lifespan at the agency lasting weeks… well that’s acting hopeful.
As for the small vs. big company, while I partially agree with you, I think that’s exactly what needs to change with “big” companies. They’re far too impersonal in a world saturated with transparent communications. Hell, att&t’s new tagline (well, one of them) is “Blogging. Delivered.” Blogging is an in-your-face, back-and-forth kind of communication. If they’re going to “deliver” it, I think they should try and get to know what it is, and reflect that in their branding.
sup kyle. came across your site via your hemmingway project and then here. i started my first blog yesterday and am using hemmingway as my blog theme. i am a copy enthusiast and am looking forward to more posts on copywriting. keep em coming.
I agree with one of the previous comments, that you are certainly going to ge more than a handful of readers. The critique of copywriting is thought provoking, and I hope you do more of it. It is not a question of being right or wrong, but more one of exapnding the number of ways that we look at a specific problem. Thanks,
Awesome. I love your site, because my copy needs so much help! I happen to be on the recieving end of those little green post cards. That made your example much more real to me. Thanks for the great posts, and keep ‘em coming!
“They lay it out: what’s changing, how will you be effected…”
Not to be critical, but it’s “affected”.
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