Exclusive: get ready for AT&T VoIP's new branding statement: it's a *real* yawner!!

I've taken another of my periodic mouse-hops over to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office's Web site.

I went to the trademark section, and learned about AT&Ts plans for a slogan it wants to use in its VoIP services branding. I gotta tell ya, a freshman level advertising class project could do better.

Seems that on December, 16, 2004, AT&T applied for a trademark on the phrase, "It's Not Just VoIP. It's AT&T VoIP."

To me, this says nothing. I think the advertising agency who thought this rather tautological statement up kinda mailed this one in. But it's AT&Ts thing, so if no protests are filed, expect to see that trademark used in AT&T's VoIP Servicesadvertising soon.

Man, I would have loved to have been at the focus group that got this one through.

Focus groups. Bah!! At best, a necessary evil, at worst, a fungible, ego-stroke mechanism for justifying corporate expenditures on unspired ideas, services and products.