Cell phone companies have always gone after each other in a friendly kind of way, but this time it gets a little personal. In Verizon’s new commercial, Ricky Garvais goes after Sprint’s map. He shows the map that you see in almost every cell phone network commercial, but in this commercial it looks at the fine print.
The cell phone networks seem to all use the same map. When Ricky looks at the fine print he magnifies the fact that at the bottom of the map it says, “map is not depiction of coverage.” I have to agree with Ricky, what’s the point of the map then? But that is to all the companies that use the maps, not just Sprint.
Ricky Gervais, through the commercial, makes fun of Sprint’s hometown, Kansas City. Missouri or Kansas? He didn’t specifically say Sprint but since their headquarters are in Kansas City, Kansas it was easy to depict. By not defining which state he meant caused an uproar of angry costumers and an angry CEO Marcelo Claure.
Claure gets mad because Ricky makes it seem like Kansas City is irrelevant. Verizon seems to not research and know that there are two different Kansas City’s so he is picking out two areas that people take pride in.
“People take a lot of pride in their city here,” Claure said, according to USA Today.
The law says that you “shouldn’t” say that you have 100 percent coverage, but tell me what cell phone company that doesn’t use the map? If you’re going to call out another company you would think you would make sure you don’t do it too.
Verizon has been sued before for false advertisement. Back in 2009, AT&T sued Verizon for demonstrating on a map that AT&T doesn’t reach a lot of places wireless. So what is the line for going after different cell phone towers to make them look better? Isn’t that an ethical issue to their customers?
With another mistake from Verizon this has made people tell their own opinions about Verizon. Clearly they aren’t as good as they say either.
At least for Sprint they are getting free publicity from Verizon’s expensive campaign.
Enhancing Your Globe 