Wendy’s and McDonald’s have emerged victorious from a lawsuit that accused the fast food chains of false advertising.
Wendy’s and McDonald’s have emerged victorious from a lawsuit that accused the fast food chains of false advertising.
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought against the two companies accusing them of selling smaller hamburgers than advertised and alleging the food didn’t look as appetizing in person as pictured on their websites.
"US District Judge Hector Gonzalez ruled that Wendy’s and McDonald’s food images “are no different than other companies’ use of visually appealing images to foster positive associations with their products.”
Not really, that's a minor part of the opinion. The more important part is they tell you how much food you're going to get of what kind and then they give you that food. I don't think anyone would be able to win a case on "my burger didn't look like the burger in the ad" because every burger looks a little different. Lots of things that are the same don't look the same and let's not suddenly pretend we get McDonalds for the appearance. They'd win false advertising if, say, a quarter pounder was only 2 oz.
yeah this lawsuit is stupid and anyone who thinks McDonald's would lose is also stupid
have we forgotten what advertising is? its idealized, its artificial, its eye-catching. thats the point. like the suit says everyone does it, thats just good marketing.
frankly i think it makes commericals a bit more tolerable if theyre at least aesthetically pleasing. but marketers marketing in a system that requires advertising for anyone to be relevant cannot be infringed on for just two companies doing the marketing the exact same. blame capitalism for ads not the companies.
(unless we're taking excessive ads on websites or whatever then blame the sites they're just greedy)
The advertising angle is likely what sank their case. Proving the food does not meet a technical specification, like not having a quarter pound of beef in a fully cooked patty, is easier to prove. But advertising has always been hyperbole.
A very important aspect that I think people overlook is that they use similar/same marketing photos of the food on their menu. That's not advertising, maybe that's what they will argue. If I look at a menu and they have a picture of the food, I'm going to expect I get what I see (within a margin) vs when I see an advertisement I expect it to be a bit hyperbolic.
Yeah, that might be a good case. Isn't the weight advertised when it's frozen/before it's cooked? How can they call it a quarter pounder if half of it's weight is reduced before it's served to you?
Because that's how food works. You buy a 1lb steak at the butcher and you see him put it on the scale. You don't weight it when it comes off the grill. You might have added butter to it, and lost some weight to dripping and evaporation. It's sort of disengenuous, if you have ever cooked, to not understand that they don't weight cooked patties and throw out the ones that lost too much weight or whatever.
The judge said through a mouth full of big mac before banging his gavel and taking a completely unrelated briefcase full of money that the defendants just happened leave around.
The technical term is "puffery", which the FTC defines as "exaggerations reasonably to be expected of a seller as to the degree of quality of his product, the truth or falsity of which cannot be precisely determined."
I'm honestly confused. Didn't they show off before that they use the actual ingredients when doing photoshoots? Like no plastic or anything, just making the burger + good lighting, otherwise it's false advertising?
Of course if you then stick that burger into a tight squished wrapper it won't look the same, compared to serving it on a plate and setting it up nicely.
I think you're right I think some of the complaints was the advertisements show more ingredients in the sandwich so they appear larger than they actually are.
Non food items are allowed in commercials but not for the advertised product. The example I heard was Cheerios can use white glue as the milk in a cereal bowl because Cheerios don't sell milk. I need to look this stuff up more though.
I think one of the things the plaintiff is arguing, which I think is valid, is that the food is not prepared the same way even if the ingredients are the same. The example they use is that the burger patty is browned on the outside but not cooked through, so appears to be a much bigger portion of meat than is actually if the burger. It's similar to the bait and switch scam of putting all the filling at the top, making it appear the sandwich or burrito is filled with that quantity, but then you open it up and it's mostly empty.
I think the argument that "we said the exact weight so it's fine" is BS because few people intuitively understand how much ounces of meat or how many grams a sandwich is, but they can intuitively understand a picture of food.
But then you have to throw the book at literally all of advertising. On TV it shows my chocolate snack bar flying through the air, followed by a trail of shiny milk and a rainbow! And in reality all I get is a boring brown bar lazily sitting in the wrapper. There's also no penguin holding it for me, darn.
I mean you have all the weights there, you have the calories there and they put the same ingredients into the burgers that they use in the photo shoot. Yes, it might be prepared differently, but who cares? Who seriously expects their food to look exactly like the advertisement, regardless if it's a burger, a candy bar or whatever?
Sure, they could put photos on the menu that look exactly like what you get. But then you'll have trouble knowing what's in the burger (as most ingredients would be hidden) and it would look unappetizing. Nobody wants that.