AT&T PICKS McCANN
By Adnews Staff
AT&T's yet-to-be-named communications equipment company has given its corporate advertising account to McCann-Erickson Worldwide of New York. The agency won the business in a competition with Young & Rubicam and FCB/Leber Katz Partners, both of New York. Both FCB and Y&R already handle advertising for AT&T. Neither will lose billings to McCann because the corporate ad assignment is a new account. Y&R's corporate identity company, Landor Associates, is working on a name and image for the new equipment firm. AT&T management decided last September to split the company into three publicly-traded global firms. The equipment company will comprise Network Systems Group, Global Business Communications Systems, Bell Laboratories, Consumer Products, AT&T Paradyne and Microelectronics. The other two companies in the new structure will be in the communication services and transaction-intensive computing segments of the "global information industry". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules restrict the amount of marketing that can be done for a company before its makes a public share offering, so it is uncertain when a launch ad campaign will start for the equipment company. It will begin operating March 31.
Separately, AT&T's wireless-service business says it intends to consolidate its advertising with a single AT&T agency. Also, AT&T's computer-making division, AT&T Global Information Solutions, has changed its name back to NCR Corp. and will be spun off as a separate company. AT&T bought NCR in 1991 and changed its name in 1994. FCB/Leber Katz Partners in New York is NCR's ad agency in the U.S. FCB Canada in Toronto has the Canadian account and places media through its Optimedia division. Y&R's Toronto office handles corporate advertising for AT&T in Canada.