YouTube A Verizon Wireless commercial comparing its 3G coverage area with AT&T’s.

AT&T, the giant company with $124 billion in annual sales, has filed a federal lawsuit against its rival, Verizon. The issue: coloring, of the sort that you do in kindergarten.

Specifically, AT&T charges that the “There’s a map for that” commercials from Verizon Wireless are misleading. These plucky ads, which poke fun at the “There’s an app for that” campaign for AT&T’s hottest handset, the iPhone from Apple, display a map with most of the country in red, representing the area covered by Verizon’s fastest 3G data service. This is compared with another map, which has much less geography marked in blue, with the caption “AT&T 3G coverage.”

AT&T’s suit, filed in the Northern District of Georgia (site of its wireless headquarters) says the script and captions of Verizon’s commercial are correct and the map accurately describes where AT&T’s 3G network is available. The problem, it says, is what is on the rest of the map: white. (That’s what the lawsuit says. When I look at the commercial on Youtube (here) the rest of the map looks gray.)

In any case, AT&T suggests that this implies that it doesn’t offer service of any sort in the white areas, when in fact it does offer slower service.

The first version of Verizon’s ads in fact said that customers who weren’t in the 3G area were “out of touch.” When AT&T complained, that language was changed, and the words “Voice and data service available outside 3G coverage area” were superimposed on the screen.

AT&T argues that even the modified ads are misleading.

“It cannot be disputed that white or blank space on a coverage map traditionally conveys inability to access information or communicate,” the suit says. (A PDF of the lawsuit is here.)

The suit cites a survey that AT&T commissioned, which found that 53 percent of consumers (interviewed at a mall) interpreted the ad to mean that AT&T had no coverage in any of the areas of the map that were not in blue. The suit is brought under the Lanham Act, which bans trademark infringement and false advertising.

Jim Gerace, a Verizon Wireless spokesman, said in an e-mail message that the suit had no merit because the ad included a notice explicitly stating that voice service was available outside the 3G area. He added that AT&T’s advertising was itself misleading.

“We believe this action by them calls into question the validity of their own claim of fastest 3G network,” said Mr. Gerace. “They are misleading customers by inferring that the fastest 3G network is much bigger than the blue” area on the map.

AT&T’s spokesman, Mark Siegel, retorted in a phone call, “Verizon began this whole campaign largely in response to the fact that we are the leader in smartphones.”

Perhaps instead of a lawsuit, this can be settled by a duel … with crayons.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/att-declares-color-war-on-verizon/