AT&T CEO John Stankey says he’s not happy with his own company’s brand

AT&T CEO John Stankey said on Tuesday he was not happy with his company’s brand and plans to refresh the image of the wireless operator in the years to come.

“Frankly, I am not happy with the current position of the AT&T brand,” Stankey said during the Goldman Sachs Communacopia virtual conference. “I’m not sure the brand is well positioned for the next 10 years.”

Various iterations of AT&T brands have been around since the late 1800s, just a few years after the invention of the telephone. The company’s burdensome reputation as a reliable fixed-line provider and dividend-paying investor still exists, even as AT&T has become a wireless operator and owner of media assets, including WarnerMedia and DirecTV.

Stankey is in the process of merging WarnerMedia with Discovery. It has also split DirecTV into a stand-alone company as it attempts to focus on AT&T’s wireless businesses, which have fallen behind Verizon and T-Mobile in terms of subscriber numbers after the T- merger. Mobile and Sprint last year.

AT&T spent more than $ 160 billion, including debt, to acquire WarnerMedia and DirecTV. Neither deal paid off for Stankey, who was instrumental in acquiring the two companies as first mate to former CEO Randall Stephenson. AT&T shares have fallen about 25% over the past five years.

The company’s goal for the coming years will be to develop 5G broadband service. Stankey said his vision to refresh the brand will go beyond advertising, although he hasn’t revealed specific details on how he intends to revive the company’s image.

“It’s a highly recognized brand, but we have to take it to a new place,” Stankey said.

AT&T has experienced several brand failures in recent years. The company chose to launch HBO Max when two other streaming services called HBO Go and HBO Now still existed. The result confused clients and drew after-the-fact criticism from WarnerMedia chief Jason Kilar, who admitted the sequence of events was a mistake in an interview with CNBC.

AT&T also changed the name of its streaming service DirecTV Now to AT&T TV Now – a separate product from AT&T TV – in 2019, ultimately killing AT&T TV Now and renaming the entire suite of DirecTV services. Several former and current AT&T and DirecTV executives have told CNBC they are critical of AT&T’s handling of DirecTV, which for years surpassed rival satellite TV provider Dish Network in terms of customers thanks to its brand and its witty TV commercials.