Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Charter Communications took issue with a T-Mobile advertisement claiming savings of “20% vs. the other big guys.”
- An initial review ruled the spot was ambiguous and misleading, and asked T-Mobile to make changes.
- In an appeal, T-Mobile has been cleared of making any unsupported claims.
To call the wireless cellular carrier market contentious might be somewhat of an understatement. Carriers feel like they’re always posturing, going to occasionally great lengths to claw subscribers back and forth from one another. That often involves some bold advertising campaigns, and last year, T-Mobile found itself in hot water more than once over its ads. This week, though, the carrier scores itself a win as the National Advertising Review Board (NARB) clears T-Mobile from challenges that it had made misleading statements.
We’re talking about the very same “Top Three Plays of the Day” T-Mobile commercial featuring Kai Cenat, Patrick Mahomes, and Snoop Dogg that caught AT&T’s ire last fall. Separately from that, though, Charter Communications filed a complaint with the National Advertising Division (NAD), centered on T-Mobile’s claim that “families can save 20% vs. the other big guys.”
Charter runs Spectrum cable, which like a growing number of cable companies, offers its own cellular service. The carrier argued that its operations are large enough for it to be considered one of those “big guys” T-Mobile was comparing itself against, and said that subscribers leaving it for T-Mobile would not enjoy the promised savings. Initially, the NAD ruled in Charter’s favor, recommending T-Mobile take down or edit its ad.
T-Mobile appealed that decision with the NARB, which rejects NAD’s logic and asserts that the carrier was not misleading viewers. For one, the organization shuts down the somewhat ridiculous assertion that people watching the ad would assume the “big guys” meant anyone other than AT&T and Verizon.
The NARB panel did not stop there, though, and goes on to explain that even if it could be argued that this was actually intended as a comparison with Spectrum, T-Mobile saying families “can” save a certain amount does not constitute a guarantee that all of them necessarily will. Basically: Charter’s complaints don’t have a leg to stand on.
