AT&T Quietly Drops "Fewest Dropped Calls" Claim

Apparently, the carrier is falling back in its "more bars in more places" slogan after a slew of reports challenging the "fewest dropped calls" campaign.

Wired News checked in with AT&T PR last week after reports surfaced that the former Cingular was tweaking its campaign, and spokesman Mark Segal said that the change simply puts the "dropped calls" claims in a "different context."

"We are still continuing to run ads that emphasize the importance of not dropping calls," said Segal in the Wired story. "But for some time now we have been transitioning the overall message of our advertising to what we call 'more bars in more places' because that's the number one reason cited by folks when they think about a high quality network."

Hmmm...sounds like spin to me, and indeed, Wired News points out that AT&T switched slogans after an investigation by the Better Business Bureau, as well as studies by Consumer Reports and JD Power that ding the carrier for its poor performance in the "dropped calls" department. And frankly, those TV ads showing (faintly) amusing misunderstandings because of dropped calls (on other networks, presumably) didn't seem so funny after all the aborted conversations I've suffered on my AT&T-bound iPhone.

Related:
AT&T: 'More Bars in More Places' is the New 'Fewest Dropped Calls' [Wired News]