BizSugar.com › Advertising › Can you be sued for what your customers say about the competition?

Quiznos invited the public to submit homemade commercials in a contest intended to attack a top rival, Subway. The contest rules made it clear that the videos should depict Quiznos sandwiches as “superior” to Subway's. Subway promptly sued Quiznos and iFilm, saying that many of the homemade videos made false claims and depicted its brand in a derogatory way.

The dispute over an ad is fairly standard — companies often sue one another over advertising claims — but the video contest raises a novel legal question: Quiznos did not make the insulting submissions, so should it be held liable for user-generated content created at its behest?

If the answer is yes, that could bring a quick death to these popular contests, advertising executives say.