Friday, November 21, 2008

AT&T Aligns Advertising Assets to Better Connect Advertisers and Consumers

New Organizational Alignment to Generate Leads for Advertisers by Reaching Consumers Across Multiple Forms of Media

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) announced that it has realigned its advertising sales and product responsibilities under two new business units to better help businesses take advantage of the full suite of advertising opportunities in print, Internet, TV, and wireless. Under the new alignment, AT&T's Advertising & Publishing business unit has been renamed AT&T Advertising Solutions and is responsible for all AT&T advertising sales, reflecting both its increased scope and the core value it delivers.

In addition, AT&T's YELLOWPAGES.COM business unit has been renamed AT&T Interactive to reflect its expanded role, which includes the development, management and delivery of online and mobile advertising products across all of AT&T's media platforms. AT&T Interactive is responsible for ensuring that online and mobile advertising inventory and offerings reach AT&T's 14.8 million broadband customers and 74.9 million wireless customers. In comScore's October ranking of the top Web properties in the U.S., AT&T Interactive Network debuted at No. 17.

These moves reflect the solid growth in advertising sales and opportunities in offering multi-platform solutions to advertisers. In September, the Advertising Age 2008 Media 100 index ranked AT&T as the 13th largest media company in the U.S. with $5.8 billion in advertising revenue.

The new advertising organization structure builds on AT&T's core strength in local search, technology, and existing advertising product portfolio. Products include YELLOWPAGES.COM's featured business listings, mobile distribution, search engine marketing, online video ads, Web sites, The Real Yellow Pages and more.

AT&T Advertising Solutions, which is led by President and CEO, Frank Jules, now has nationwide responsibility for all AT&T advertising sales including The Real Yellow Pages, YELLOWPAGES.COM, AT&T U-verseSM TV and other digital ad products that are developed, managed and delivered by AT&T Interactive.

AT&T Interactive, under the leadership of President and CEO David Krantz, will continue to grow its flagship YELLOWPAGES.COM local search platform, which can be accessed by consumers via the Web, mobile applications — and through its own interactive channel on AT&T U-verse TV. YELLOWPAGES.COM's average monthly unique visitors have grown 38 percent from Q3 2007 to Q3 2008¹. This growth has been driven by highly targeted search results, expanded content and features such as video advertisements — all of which enhance the connection between consumers and advertisers.

"Together with AT&T Interactive, we are positioned better than ever to bring the benefits of our offerings to customers," said Jules. "The realignment streamlines our now 50-state sales organization's ability to offer businesses a suite of advertising solutions across multiple platforms. These changes are great news for our customers, and our business in this evolving advertising search marketplace."

Krantz said: "As AT&T Interactive, aligning all advertising products into one business unit gives us the scale and capabilities to create meaningful value for our advertisers. In our expanded role, we remain focused on building our business and brand surrounding our flagship Web property YELLOWPAGES.COM, and now have the mission to evolve our business even further — ultimately providing our advertisers with the most comprehensive reach in local search, mobile and online advertising."

¹ Comparison of averages of monthly unique visitors measured across three months in Q3 07 vs. Q3 08. comScore Media Trends July, Aug, Sept 2007 and July, Aug, Sept 2008.

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