AT&T claims Verizon ads mislead customers

By Jeffry Scott

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Atlanta-based AT&T Mobility filed suit in federal court to stop Verizon from making “misleading” claims in a multimillion-dollar national advertising campaign for its 3G mobile service.

In response, last weekend Verizon launched three more of the offending commercials in what's a shaping up as prickly back-and-forth between the nation’s two biggest wireless carriers.

The Verizon “There’s a Map for That” ads feature a map of the United States to illustrate how much greater Verizon’s 3G coverage is than AT&T’s. They spoof commercials for the Apple iPhone, which uses the AT&T 3G network and the advertising line "There's an App for That."

AT&T claims in its suit all the white space on the Verizon map is misleading and a federal judge needs to pull the plug on the claims to “prevent consumers from being misled by the maps into believing that AT&T offers no wireless service in large parts of the United States.” The suit was filed last week.

AT&T said it commissioned a consumer survey and found that 23.5 percent of people are deceived by the ads. In its suit, it is asking the judge to order Verizon to eliminate the map from the commercials -- but not to yank the commercials altogether.

Verizon already changed the commercials once, deleting the phrase "out of touch" from the ads, after AT&T complained in early October.

Verizon spokeswoman Caran Smith said Tuesday the company has no plans to make more changes to its ads. "We stand behind our advertising. If they [AT&T] have a better map, we’d certainly like to see it. It’s clearly an accurate representation of our 3G coverage.”

AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said Verizon launched the ads because AT&T has twice as many “smart phone” customers as Verizon does. “And that’s where the great growth area is in the industry, smart phones.”

In its suit, AT&T claims the ads are causing the company to lose "incalculable market share, and invaluable goodwill" AT&T has spent billions of dollars developing. Siegel declined to say if AT&T planned counterattack ads.

A hearing in the case is scheduled for Nov. 18 before Federal District Court Judge Timothy C. Batten Sr.