AT&T Overtakes Verizon Wireless in Ad Spending

Rethinking possible yet? If youve paying any attention to advertising on TV, newspapers and the Web lately, you just might be.

A new Bernstein Research study shows that AT&T really pumped out the ads in the first part of 2010. The report says AT&T outspent fellow phone giant Verizon for the first time in six years in 1Q10. ATT spent almost $500 million dollars across all platforms, most of it touting its wireless business. That beat Verizon by $50 million. Sprint was barely in the game, spending half as much as its more successful competitors during the same time period, down 25 percent from what it spent the quarter before. Of course, maybe Sprint was just saving up.  Ads for the new HTC Evo smartphone have been pretty prevalent over the past couple of weeks.

The No. 4 wireless company, T-Mobile, bumped its ad budget up almost 42 percent, spending about $150 to market its service in the first quarter.

Overall, the report says wireless companies spent more than $1.3 billion on ads during 1Q10, which was up 6 percent from the same period in 2009.