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.
Only because ‘everyone does it’
"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.”
Italics mine
Everyone does drugs, can we stop punishing people for it?
woah woah woah how would we enslave minorities if we decriminalized drugs
be a little more empathetic to slave owners (prisons and by proxy the politicians) please
If you replace your underscores with asterisks, emphasis/italics should work as intended.
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.
Lots of things that are the same don’t look the same
…and that’s false advertising, that’s the point of the lawsuit.
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)
like the suit says everyone does it
And they should not be allowed to.
what is the line then
how bout this. we ban ALL film. cameras are no longer allowed and any sort of media should be burned as its all idealized and any picture of anything wont look like a picture of something else therefore all media should be banned due to false advertising.
wait that doesnt make any sense. youre not gonna take a shitty video of yourself and post it online youre gonna take a bunch of attempts so it looks better than you actually are. that’s marketing its no different that a company is doing it. therefore if you want to be angry at a company “false advertising” then be mad at every picture in existence too.
try to at least be consistent with your cynicism. dont judge others based on their actions if youre gonna judge yourself only based on your circumstance.
wait that doesnt make any sense.
Well you at least said one sane thing in that rambling cacophony
lol so u dont have any idea and ur just yapping got it
“Case dismissed”
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.
That’s an amazing visual
America proves once again that we will allow just about anything if it makes corpos money.
Fuckin gonk Corpos
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Just, uh, stop giving these shitty companies your money and uh, problem solved!
Ah yes, if only we did this one easy thing! It so easy!
If it was that easy/simple they would be out of business already. Unfortunately reality doesn’t always line up with these “simple” solutions, as evidence by… reality.
IDK, I stopped going to McDonald’s and Wendy’s: So far it’s going great and their misleading ads no longer affect me.
No. I’m, I’m simply saying that life, uh… finds a way.
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 just recently became aware of that term. Thanks!
Did anyone really believe the corporate judge would do any differently?
Poor guy now has to take care of a new yacht
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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 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.
…and it would look unappetizing. Nobody wants that.
There’s the problem. How about trying to make your food more appetizing. . .
Dude, it’s fast food. It comes delivered in a wrapper or a small box that has been moved around all over the place.
This is not high end eating where they serve you your burger on a proper plate (those ones actually look nice).
Wrong industry.
And if you don’t like it, why the hell would you keep going there?
Who seriously expects their food to look exactly like the advertisement
If that was the case, why are they showing tasty burgers? And not like puppies or boobs or something that will engage more people?
If everyone knows what’s on the screen is not their real food, why does it look suspiciously like their real food only tastier?
I mean, they often do?
Take TV advertisements for the food, there’s often a mascot, actors and other props.
Or look at the menu for a milk shake, you only get a pink or beige or brown liquid, but the menu shows a chocolate bar, fruits or whatever. Nothing you can actually find in the food you then receive.
In 9 out of 10 cases the menu and ads are highly polished up and don’t look like a photo of the real thing.
But they do. They show something that is close to the real thing, but not the real thing. The whole purpose is to deceive.
they often do?
You’re missing the point. In an ad for a burger, why do they put a burger on the screen? Not the burger you’ll actually get, but one that’s similar but tastier looking.
“This is so backwards” one would think and then one realizes that all advertising is deception.
The judge tacitly acknowledges this truth.
I dunno, seems like the judge is explicitly acknowledging it.
they won, we all lost
