CenturyTel Launches Rebranding Campaign

by David Reed

October 30,2009

A few days after signs changed from CenturyTel to CenturyLink at the regional headquarters, the new general manager stood next to a service truck parked outside and pointed out a few of the little things that went into its big rebranding campaign.

First of all, it's a brand-new Ford F-150, not the dinky Ford Rangers being phased out as service trucks. Those had small logos on the driver and passenger doors. This truck has more prominent logos, stripes meant to illustrate communication pathways and the company's Web site, www.centurylink.com, not its telephone number.

"That's where we want to drive our customers," said Ken McMahon, who replaced George Carney as vice president and general manager after his retirement and has been on the job for three months. "To me, telephony means… older," he said as he stood in front of the yellow-brick structure at Cherry and Seventh streets that's been the telephone building since its construction in 1929. "We are now more of a technology company focused on broadband services."

In 2002, CenturyTel moved in and took over the telephone service territory from GTE Verizon. In July of 2009, CenturyTel and Embarq announced the completion of their merger into a company with more than 2 million broadband customers, nearly half a million video subscribers and 7.5 million access lines in 33 states.

The brand conversion officially took place Oct. 19. They stripped off the "Tel" and replaced it with "Link," while doing away with Embarq, a name that had only been around since the 2006 Sprint Nextel spinoff.

That day, workers began using CenturyLink when answering the telephone and sending out bills. Web site visitors were redirected to the new company site, and all of the signs changed. From the company's headquarters in Monroe, La., CEO Glen Post gave a pep talk with as many of the 20,000 employees on the job that day through video links. McMahon delivered caps and mugs with the CenturyLink logo to most of the 200 employees at the Northern Missouri Market headquarters in Columbia. Then they had a party with catered barbeque.

"We want employees to understand the brand message," McMahon said, "so they can effectively communicate it to customers, friends and family."

The rebranding campaign started months ago and has included print, radio, television and billboard advertisements, but customers first read about the name change when they opened their bills and saw a pamphlet inside. (The only thing that has changed on the actual bill is the logo, McMahon stressed, not the contact numbers, the format or, more importantly, the rates.)

"A key way we have reached out to customers is through bill inserts," McMahon said. "When I talked with customers, that (communication) seems to be the one that resonates."

Billboards went up along Interstate 70 and on U.S. Highway 63 and informed drivers passing by that CenturyTel and Embarq were to become CenturyLink. The message on a billboard near the U.S. 63-Broadway interchange will soon change to present tense to reflect that the merger has taken place. The trademarked slogan is: Stronger Connected. The logo is a circle made of dark- and light-green triangles, and it looks like a pie separated so everyone can grab a slice.

The TV ads play off that image by showing an aerial view of a group of people joining hands on a green field and joyfully walking around in a big circle.

"The TV ads are not product- and service-oriented at all," McMahon said. "It's more about what the brand is and what we're about."

The company pitch: "We are committed to being the broadband leader in this market," McMahon said. "The message is that together, we're stronger. We believe in connecting people to what matters most, and that is to each other. Our connections are easy, accessible and affordable."

CenturyTel acquired Embarq in a stock-for-stock transaction valued at $11.6 billion, and executives of the combined company said they expected to save $400 million by 2011 through cost cutting they call "operating and capital synergies."

McMahon said most of the cuts will take place in Monroe and the Kansas City area, where Embarq was based, and he does not foresee "a significant amount of growth" in the Columbia workforce. In the first round of cuts in July, 55 of the 2,800 employees in the Kansas City area were laid off.

The Northern Missouri Market stretches along I-70 from the western suburbs of St. Louis to Columbia, with a dip down to Jefferson City, and just south of Clinton to the Kansas border. McMahon said the merger increased the Northern Missouri Market's customer base by 80 percent and the workforce by 90 percent.

CenturyLink's main competitors in Columbia are Socket and Mediacom, but McMahon, who declined to provide market share information, insists that his company has the advantage because its fiber optic network covers virtually all of the 49,500 households.

"We're capable of providing broadband to just about everybody in Columbia," he said.