A Very Strange Press Release from AT&T?

This is a very strange press release, seemingly from AT&T:

AT&T, Inc; which is now known as the New AT&T representing the acquisition of SBC and Bellsouth, is now operating a suite of popular websites and services outside of the traditional landline telephone business. The company operates the very popular http://www.YELLOWPAGES.com, http://www.YELLOWPAGES.travel, and a free toll free directory service 1-800-YELLOWPAGES for those that hate paying for 411. It is now official that AT&T owns everything with the “Yellow Pages” branding within the United States.

I don’t believe that Yellowpages.travel is owned by or associated with AT&T. Also the language of the release is strange and awkward.

Note this line in particular: It is now official that AT&T owns everything with the “Yellow Pages” branding within the United States. And how about this line: With online ventures such as YELLOWPAGES.com, YELLOWPAGES.travel and 1-800-YELLOWPAGES, they have advanced into the online market nicely.

“They” have advanced into the online market “nicely.” Huh?

While ownership of the “yellow pages” brand would appear to be true as a de facto matter and justify the $100 million that SBC and BellSouth jointly paid for the site YellowPages.com, AT&T corporate and YellowPages.com PR would be very unlikely to use this language in an official company press release.

Could this be a fake or fraudulent release? If so there are a lot of “cohones” (as they say in the vernacular) involved. Who knows what’s going on with this?

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I got confirmation from YellowPages.com that this is not a legitimate release from AT&T.

This entry was posted on March 19, 2008 at 1:51 pm and is filed under Brand and branding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 Responses to “A Very Strange Press Release from AT&T?”

Davis Freeberg Says:
March 19, 2008 at 2:43 pm
This is really strange. Good job on noticing that it looked funny. I don’t know how RH Donnelley is related to the YellowPages, but their stock has been showing up on pump and dump lists lately. My gut tells me that the two are related, but who really knows for sure.
Drew Says:
March 20, 2008 at 7:02 pm
a similar press release went out yesterday for yellowbook.

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080319005388&newsLang=en

http://www.yellowbook.travel/
http://www.yellowpages.travel/
Steve Says:
March 21, 2008 at 11:20 pm
No matter who wrote these press releases, YELLOWPAGES.travel is a very useful service. i love it!
Greg Sterling Says:
March 22, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Hmmm… any relationship to the company?