Were you as fascinated by the Verizon/AT&T commercial battle this holiday season as I was?
Verizon’s campaign tore into AT&T’s 3G coverage with a series of cheeky and surprisingly direct digs—from spoofing the iPhone’s “there’s an app for that” with “there’s a map for that” to marooning a sparse 3G coverage map to the island of misfit toys—while touting its own “superior” coverage map and network capabilities.
AT&T filed a lawsuit against Verizon, claiming the ads were misleading and should be pulled. A judge disagreed, and suddenly AT&T went from being the darling of the cell phone market as the sole carrier of the iPhone to, well, a bit of a spoilsport whining about a bully. I have to agree with this PCWorld article:
The lawsuit was a bad strategic move for AT&T because it has the exact opposite effect of its goal…The result is that the marketing campaign is getting tons of attention and free advertising, and customers are led to question what AT&T is trying to hide.
Let me first say that I am not a customer of Verizon or AT&T, merely a (somewhat amused) observer. With that out of the way, I have to say that in my opinion, Verizon definitely got the upper hand in this ad war. AT&T’s response ads that feature Luke Wilson—an actor that I personally like but have to admit is bland and somewhat irrelevant at the moment—hardly address the claims Verizon made and instead focus on attacking different aspects of service.
This article from MSNBC provides a simple breakdown of the claims made in both campaigns versus the truth and actuality of their services. When it comes right down to it, both companies are right in some respects and both companies are misleading in others.
What do you think? Were Verizon’s ads funny or fudging? Are AT&T’s response ads working for or against them?
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