It’s looking like T-Mobile may have gone to far in it’s new ad campaign, where they are bashing AT&T. Of course, the bashing AT&T part is nothing new, but the fact that magenta was using false claims is.
The National Advertising Division (NAD), has rebuked T-Mobile for several statements made in its advertising campaign. They are also asking for T-Mobile to pull the ads. Why, you ask? Since John Legere became the CEO at T-Mobile, the company has gotten really aggressive, almost the “I don’t care” type of mentality when talking about their competitors. They have bashed AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. Although AT&T seems to be their biggest target. Could be because AT&T failed to buy them a few years ago.
T-Mobile has made claims that they actually can’t back up. According to NAD, who is the investigative unit of the advertising industry’s system of self-regulation. It’s controlled by the Council of Better Business Bureaus. T-Mobile has downplayed the calls for change, calling them “very minor,” and said they would consider NADs recommendations.
“NADs findings are a validation of our marketing approach,” Chief Marketing Officer for T-Mobile, Mike Sievert stated, “In fact, today’s NAD findings won’t result in any substantial changes to our marketing claims.”
So what exactly was the problem? Well T-Mobile claimed that they had 50% more bandwidth than AT&T. Which is true if you compared T-Mobile’s HSPA and LTE network to AT&T’s HSPA network. Which is what magenta was doing. But if you compare both HSPA and LTE networks to each other, you’ll see that AT&T has more bandwidth. Which is why NAD wants these ads taken down.
NAD also asked T-Mobile to pull or at least modify their “call quality” claim, which the NAD called “overly broad,” and had suggested that they more narrowly define it as “audio or voice quality.”
So it looks like T-Mobile is in some hot water. How many of you are surprised by this move from magenta? Let us know in the comments below.