AT&T yesterday sued the advertising industry’s official watchdog over the group’s demand that AT&T stop using its rulings for advertising and promotional purposes.
As previously reported, BBB National Programs’ National Advertising Division (NAD) found that AT&T violated a rule “by issuing a video advertisement and press release that use the NAD process and its findings for promotional purposes,” and sent a cease-and-desist letter to the carrier. The NAD operates the US advertising industry’s system of self-regulation, which is designed to handle complaints that advertisers file against each other and minimize government regulation of false and misleading claims.
While it’s clear that both AT&T and T-Mobile have a history of misleading ad campaigns, AT&T portrays itself as a paragon of honesty in new ads calling T-Mobile “the master of breaking promises.” An AT&T press release about the ad campaign said the NAD “asked T-Mobile to correct their marketing claims 16 times over the last four years,” and an AT&T commercial said T-Mobile has faced more challenges for deceptive ads from competitors than all other telecom providers in that time.
While the NAD describes AT&T’s actions as a clear-cut violation of rules that advertisers agree to in the self-regulatory process, AT&T disputed the accusation in a lawsuit filed in US District Court for the Northern District of Texas. “We stand by our campaign to shine a light on deceptive advertising from our competitors and oppose demands to silence the truth,” AT&T said in a press release.
AT&T’s lawsuit asked the court for a declaration, stating “that it has not violated NAD’s procedures” and that “NAD has no legal basis to enforce its demand for censorship.” The lawsuit complained that AT&T hasn’t been able to run its advertisements widely because “NAD’s inflammatory and baseless accusations have now intimidated multiple TV networks into pulling AT&T’s advertisement.”