In early October, Verizon Wireless debuted an advertisement targeting the poor 3G coverage of their competing incorporation, AT&T. The advertisement Verizon produced depicted maps of coverage for both their own area colored red, and AT&T's region illustrated in blue. Verizon's map was almost full, while AT&T's had large portions of coverage missing. Using the slogan, "There's a map for that" (obviously a mock of AT&T and Apple's "There's an app for that"), Verizon Wireless soon found themselves with a lawsuit from AT&T, who said to stop the commercials.

The lawsuit was filed because AT&T felt that Verizon's commercial was untrue. AT&T claimed the advertisement mislead customers into believe that AT&T had a very limited and weak area of coverage, when in fact a map with their second generation network coverage (EDGE) would cover the same area as Verizon. At first Verizon tried to ignore this and continued with their production of clever and insightful ads. 

When the pursuit by AT&T was not laid to rest, however, Verizon finally had to react. The introduction of Verizon's response consisted of a short and sweet message: "AT&T did not file this lawsuit because Verizon's ‘There's A Map For That' advertisements are untrue; AT&T sued because Verizon's ads are true and the truth hurts."

Verizon, without a doubt, won this fight. AT&T has, for the moment, has pulled the lawsuit. Although not stating why, one can assume that it's because of the pure ownage Verizon had responded with earlier.

Although disputes like this seem to be somewhat uncommon, this argument has been a real eye-opener for other companies. Fair play or complicated advertising gone wrong? If corporate America is going to file a lawsuit and try to sue another national company, they'd better get their facts straight.