A U.S. judge has rejected Burger King’s bid to dismiss a lawsuit claiming that it cheated hungry customers by making its Whopper sandwich appear larger than it actually is.
U.S. District Judge Roy Altman in Miami said Burger King must defend against a claim that its depiction of Whoppers on in-store menu boards mislead reasonable customers, amounting to a breach of contract.
Customers in the proposed class action accused Burger King of portraying burgers with ingredients that “overflow over the bun,” making it appear the burgers are 35% larger and contain more than double the meat than the chain serves.
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I’m not overly surprised. I read the article and know the TV ad claims were dismissed, but the currently running TV ad campaign for BK makes their burgers look ridiculously huge - like larger than the entire box a Big Mac comes in.
Check out the whopper shown at the very start of this ad (screenshot) to see what I mean. When did you last have a burger that was half the width of your torso?
This is what I call badvertising.
Lol wtf that is hilarious. It’s like almost the size of a soccer/basketball.
To be fair, 75 percent of the height between the bun is not burger, but lettuce, tomato, etc. But I’ve never seen veggies stand that tall or not be compressed by the person making it.
Yeah… but that burger is almost twice as large as what they actually sell.
… nor be that plentiful to begin with.
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Umm the actual court order the article refers to is super generous to the plaintiffs lol. Whoever’s representing them made such basic mistakes that I’m not even sure how they passed the bar exam:
The Plaintiffs’ first cause of action lists–in a single paragraph that spans four pages–fifty
different state (and DC) consumer-protection statutes.(This is a no-no in every federal court in every state.)
In either event, the Plaintiffs concede that they’ve failed to meet the requirements of Mississippi and Ohio law–even as they ask us not to dismiss those claims.
(Wtf? lol)
we agree with Burger King that a reasonable person wouldn’t have interpreted Burger King’s TV and online ads as binding offers.
(This is well-settled law and taught to most first-year law students.)
Isn’t that all fast food advertising?! Or even for advertising. It’s all fake food. Like Photoshop for food. Lol
doesn’t mean it’s legal, just means no one’s ever sued them for the deception before and won
Well, pretty flimsy here. Subway was attacked succesfully, but that was because they specifically gave a certain size. It’s less tangible with Whooper.
You guys want to start one against McDonald’s?? You don’t even see the burger party anymore.
BK’s menu is absolute shite.
Just get the tiny double cheeseburgers off the saver menu. Two if you want to feel like you’ve eaten something. It’s a fraction of the price and they’re not much smaller than a Whopper Double Angus XXL Megaburger or whatever they’ve named stuff this week.
The only other thing worth your time is the Bacon Double Cheese XL, and only if it’s on special offer on the app.
They’ve done it. They’ve finally gotten fed up with whoppers being mostly bread.
I feel like this belongs in !nottheonion.
Yes. BK is probably sizing the bun-to-patty ratio to make them look and seem larger. They also probably make sure to paint their lettuce green so it looks fresher. Or would, if that weren’t already banned by the FDA.
The issue here is it isn’t just ratios. The entire burger itself looks far larger in diameter than it is in reality
In marketing materials, that’s supposed to happen.
If they say it’s a 1/4 pound patty… it’s a 1/4 patty even if the photo is a 1/3 pound patty. Or it’s not then the lawsuit has merit.
The pictures are allowed to be misleading
The pictures are allowed to be misleading
- That’s not good. Time to change that.
It depends on your perspective. From a consumer protection stand point, sure, marketing based entirely on all the faults of the product might be helpful. “our burgers are designed to be unsatisfying, to make you buy more. they’re loaded with fat and butter and other kinds of fat, and the buns are incredibly sugary to make you addicted and make up for the utter lack of real flavor… and it’s not even entirely beef in that there patty” isn’t really going to sell many burgers.
So from a marketing perspective it is bad. Saying “oh, the photo on the menu makes it appetizing, when it’s not really appetizing” is like… Saying “OH. our photographers and food modelers did a good job!” to them. and that, whether you like me or not, is why you really need to read the menu instead of looking at the advertisements. Whose beef patty is probably made of painted mashed potatoes, painted up in lacquer because it’s hard to keep food fresh enough to get a good photo…
read the menu instead of looking at the advertisements
The issue is most fast food restaurants use the advertisement photos on the menu. Sorta leads the customer to believe that’s what they are getting (with some tolerance).
The pictures are allowed to be misleading
Guess we’ll find out, huh?
Stuff in the ads is very rarely the same as reality. For example, under bright studio lights, ice cream melts pretty quick. Mashed potato doesn’t. Guess what they use.
It depends. If the ad is for ice cream then they have to use ice cream by law. But any toppings can be fake.
If they’re advertising chocolate syrup, the ice cream can be fake but the chocolate syrup has to be real.
Of course. I assumed they were saying it was the burgers itself. As long as the patty was a 1/4 pound patty at some point or whatever they say they serve…it’s going to be hard to argue
People were spray painting lettuce green at one point. And I’m pretty sure they still occasionally dye pistachios red for some reason
Meanwhile, ice cream that doesn’t melt…
I ate ice cream in China that doesn’t melt even if you burn it with a torch
How were the toxic metals?
I remember seeing a show when I was a kid made for kids about deceptive advertising (it was on HBO back when HBO was decent) and they had a segment on all the ways they dress food for food ads. It was fascinating. I remember milk was made from Elmer’s Glue, cereal flakes were chosen from hundreds of boxes to find the perfect ones, and ice cream, which would melt under the hot lights if it were real, was made from vegetable shortening.
oh yeah. Commercial food photography is… a sneaky art. they find textures that are similar and paint them to be what they need. hard gloss like beef juices are lacquer, fruits are made to look fresher with hairspray… and this assumes they’re using fruit at all.
They use motor oil for pancake syrup because it won’t soak into the pancakes.
Yeah, but a small whopper means you eat less Burger King food. That sounds like a plus to me.
You can easily have none at all for free.
Oh you and your logic.
I want that Bis Ass whopper from the 90s back. It shrinked over time…
I feel like McDonald’s Australia needs this. Everything including the fries is smaller then everywhere else.
Whoppish
They should just claim they meant to advertise “big Whoppers” as in “big lies.” Now they were telling the truth. Case over.
Really wish they sell Whataburger everywhere in the States(especially after that Chicago venture capital bought the chain) , never had the problem of the burger being too small there.
Burger King (Hungry Jack’s too) should also be ashamed for the sorry excuse of the imitation mayonnaise they use in the Whopper.
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How has McDonald’s not had a similar lawsuit. They have continuously shrunk the Big Mac until it was a slider, then introduce the grand Big Mac… The original Big Mac.
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Bah. Whoppers are fine and priced comparatively to the competition.
Whoppers today are trash compared to the Whoppers of even back in 2007.
They did something, changed something, went to a different meat combination for their burgers I don’t know what it is but 15 years ago Whoppers were amazingly better than they are today.
Maybe your tastes have just changed and developed as you got older like everyone does. Whoppers are the same shitty paper thin patties and browning, soggy iceberg lettuce drenched in half a gallon of ketchup and mayo they’ve always been.
^looks like we found the king, boys, time we teach this overpricing sovereign a thing or two about value, and bait & switch
