This might be the first time the F word has appeared in the post body — and it won’t be from me — so cover your eyes/ears if you don’t care for that language. Here are Brad Feld’s critical words verbatim on the new AT & T branding campaign :

Now, I’m well known for hating money wasted on marketing, but $1 billion for that? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I can imagine about 1 billion better uses for the money.

Perhaps a logo with money on fire would make more sense? Are the ad execs lighting their stogies with $100 bills or what? I’m smelling some big commissions here. Maybe the balance sheet on this expensive campaign will make sense at the end of the day?

Dick Costolo from Feedburner leaves a comment in Feld’s thread talking about “cleansing the brand” and I’m not completely sure if he’s trying to justify the cost or mock it.

It would be funny if this was satire, but it’s not. They should give 990 million of that money to charitable causes (or rebate overcharged customers!) and spend 10 million on a smart radio and web campaigns. Just forget about insanely overpriced TV advertising including the most outlandish price gouging: Superbowl advertising. ATNT, true to their dynamite name (cough, cough), continues to implode wherever they go. Let’s hope SBC can make some good lemonade out of this brand. For a billion bones, they had better.

For those who subscribe to the Wall Street Journal you can read the original story here.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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