Not long after Verizon started offering unlimited data at the beginning of last year, Sprint made it its mission to show the public that Verizon’s unlimited data plan is inferior than their. Sprint started airing a series of TV commercial where it usually pictured Verizon’s unlimited data plan in a negative way, changing the public’s perception of how they are getting ripped off by Verizon.
On Monday, The National Advertising Division, a branch of the Better Business Bureau, publicly demanded Sprint to stop running these type of ads where they paint Verizon in an inferior way without no type of data to represent their claims. Sprint has aired three ads mocking Verizon including the popular “Draggin’ Maggie,” “Doug,” and “Twice the Price Store.” Other claims include:
- Verizon’s network has been slowing down since it began offering unlimited data services.
- Sprint’s cellular network has “more spectrum for the future” than Verizon’s cellular network.
- Verizon’s unlimited plan costs “twice as much” as Sprint Unlimited.
- “If you’re already here paying twice as much for [Verizon’s] unlimited plan, why not hop on over and waste your money with us, too?”
- Verizon’s cellular phone services are “twice the price” of Sprint’s.
- Sprint Unlimited offers a better overall “unlimited” experience and performance than Verizon’s unlimited Service.
- Sprint Unlimited provides faster speeds than Verizon’s unlimited service.
- Verizon shortchanges its customers by enticing consumers to sign up for its unlimited service and then providing them with lower network speeds.
- Verizon’s network does not have the capacity to support high-quality unlimited service and to meet future demands.
- Verizon’s unlimited plan costs twice as much as Sprint Unlimited, regardless of the number of lines and its cellular phone services, in general, cost twice as much as Sprint’s.
Although not agreeing with their decision, Sprint decided to comply with NAD’s requests and will take into consideration data sources when airing future ads. “While Sprint respectfully disagrees that the independent, third-party data it provided was insufficient to support its claim that there was a slowdown in Verizon’s download speeds in the period following the introduction of Verizon’s unlimited plan, Sprint will take NAD’s guidance into account when using all available data sources, including crowd-sourced speed test data, for future advertising,” the carrier told the ad regulation agency.