AT&T’s new ad campaign: If we lived in a fantasy world, we’d have you covered

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If you stare at the above collation of images from AT&T’s new advertising campaign for its mobile network, a peculiar theme emerges.

In each case, a poster paints a picture of a fanciful, non-existent world -- Camelot, Lilliput, Atlantis, ‘state of Euphoria’ and Neverland. The image is accompanied by a statement that, if there really were such a made-up place, AT&T would ‘have you covered.’

Except, there are no such places. Does that mean that AT&T, then, doesn’t have you covered?

It seems to follow the classic logical rule that, ‘If false, then anything.’ Meaning that: If the statement upon which the logical rule depends is itself false, then it doesn’t matter what the conclusion is. For example, if we began a sentence with,’If the moon was made of green cheese,’ then you could finish it with anything. If the moon were made of green cheese, then it would rain dollar bills seven days a week.

That’s a logically sound statement, even though it doesn’t have much application to the real world.

AT&T took licks earlier this week, being ranked the overall worst cellphone network by Consumer Reports, coming in last in a number of categories used by the magazine. But the provider has been rallying, putting out a press release recently noting a research firm found its network was the fastest among all major carriers -- more than 60% faster than Verizon, and 40% faster than Sprint. Its competitors did not explicitly disagree with those findings.

Still, the question remains: Why doesn’t AT&T want to focus on reality?

-- David Sarno