If the lawsuits don’t work, fight fire with fire.

That seems to be the approach AT&T is taking after a judge dismissed its request to pull Verizon Wireless’s “There’s a Map For That” ads earlier this week.

AT&T released a commercial that hits back at its rival. The 30-second spot features Luke Wilson, star of movies such as “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “My Super Ex-Girlfriend,” who asks, “Who offers the best 3G experience? Let’s compare.”

He then puts Xs under AT&T’s column for “nation’s fastest 3G network,” “talk and surf at the same time,” “most popular smart phones” and “access to over 100,000 apps” — the last two clearly nods to Apple’s iPhone, which AT&T has exclusive U.S. distribution rights to.

“Name that starts with the letter V? Hey, they got one,” Mr. Wilson says.

AT&T had previously filed a lawsuit against Verizon Wireless requesting that its “There’s a Map For That” ads, which compare data coverage between the two carriers, be taken off the air. On Wednesday, a federal judge denied the request but granted AT&T another hearing on Dec. 16.

Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone, has called the lawsuit without merit. AT&T, in its complaint and a subsequent letter to customers, has called its rival’s ads misleading.

This latest commercial, however, which ends with “when you compare, there’s no comparison,” has some wondering if AT&T’s responses are doing more harm than good.

“Thanks to AT&T’s suit, Verizon is now getting more attention for its snarky TV ads,” MarketWatch’s Therese Poletti writes.

“It looks like AT&T threw this one together in a hurry, grabbing a bucket of magnets and a board and sticking them into some abandoned warehouse with Luke Wilson and some Apple-ad-style music. Luke didn’t even have time to shave!” adds Paul Miller at Engadget. “Though this is clearly just the beginning.”

source: blogs.wsj.com