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AT&T vs VERIZON… GREAT THEATRE!

By Ann Williams in Ann William's Blog

The litigation/smackdown battle between AT&T and Verizon gets better with each new ad campaign, each new accusation and each brief filed in court. If you haven’t been following the burgeoning spat, it all started with AT&T’s successful ad campaign for the iPhone for which they are the exclusive network provider.

You are sure to have heard: “There’s an App for that!” A clever, recognizable, rhythmic sounding catchphrase that sent droves to the iPhone and an AT&T carrier contract.

Then along came Verizon heavily advertising the newly launched Droid as a better phone on a better network!” After hammering the iPhone with ads pointing to some of Droid’s killer features, Verizon followed up with an ad campaign for its massive 3G network coverage. The ads show maps – fulsome red for Verizon and sparse blue for AT&T. Verizon’s catchphrase? “There’s a MAP for that!”

Pretty good theatre so far, huh? But it gets better. Next, AT&T filed a lawsuit against Verizon to cease and desist with their ad campaign, saying that the information in Verizon’s commercials was misleading and damaging.

AT&T didn’t dispute the coverage issue, but claimed that the Verizon commercials implied that AT&T customers couldn’t use their mobile phones or surf the web outside of an AT&T 3G area. An Atlanta federal judge disagreed, declining to grant AT&T the injunction which would have forced Verizon to drop or suspend their ad campaign. So, it would appear that Verizon has won round One.

AT&T, however, vowed to continue pursuing legal remedies and hit back at rival Verizon with an ad campaign of their own. The 30-second spot features well known actor, Luke Wilson, who asks the question, “Who offers the best 3G experience? Let’s compare.” He then proceeds to do so, placing X’s on an orange display board next to features supported by AT&T and then one lonely X in the Verizon column which fails to stick and clatters to the floor. Amusing. Expect more to come in this purple drama. And yes, look for it to stretch into a rather long and drawn out back and forth with more clever catchphrases flying about.

How about this one: “There’s a laugh for that!”

Much Ado About The Big FTC Blogging Disclosure

By Ann Williams in Ann William's Blog

As it turns out, the blogger flap generated by the FTC two weeks ago with their rules regarding non-disclosure and fines of $11,000, is pretty much “nothing”. Mary Engle, an FTC attorney and assistant director of Advertising Practices, said they, the FTC, never intended to police all blogs and bloggers. (No kidding!) “We couldn’t do it if we wanted to and we don’t want to.”

So, what was this great FTC tsunami announcement all about then, if it wasn’t about bloggers disclosing certain freebees or payments as an incentive to blog favorably about the product or service? According to Engle, this announcement was meant only to fill out the guidelines first issued in 1980, having to do with endorsement and testimonials. These new guidelines are nothing more than beefed-up older guidelines with no force of law. They are separate and apart from the FTC’s Rules and Regulations that, if violated, can carry some rather severe civil penalties. The newly rounded out guidelines are aimed, Engle said, at those advertisers and marketers who provide free goods and services in a large way to certain segments of the population who in exchange promise endorsements on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

For example, a Proctor & Gamble campaign recently provided 400,000 moms with free products, like Tide and Febreeze, for their favorable testimonials about these products on their social network accounts or on blogs. The general assumption by the reader would be that these moms tried the products and loved them, sending something of a false advertising message. Engle noted that this kind of relationship needs to be disclosed to further fair advertising practices. Engle mentioned that they could have done a better job in defining the guidelines, to outline more specifically at whom the FTC was aiming. (No kidding again!)

To further complicate the great misunderstanding over the revised guidelines was the fact that shortly after the FTC announcement, Richard Cleland, chief of the Consumer Protection Agency, intimated that if a blogger received an item for review on a blog, that it would be considered to have compensatory value unless returned after the review was written. That remark fueled a firestorm!

But in the end, it turned out to be just a quick little grassfire. Bloggers who mention a product they may have received as a freebee or may have bought, have no need to go scouring back over their records. That free bottle of wine you received from a vintner back in January, drank and barely remember tasting, won’t cost you $11,000.

Relax. Just a minor bureaucratic flap.