Saturday, March 5, 2011
NO MATTER HOW YOU SPELL IT, PAUL MCCARTNEY WON'T PLAY WITH THEM: Slashfood and the United States Department of Agriculture explain why and under what circumstances a Nestlé-owned frozen pizza company (which is not delivery) can sell something called "wyngz" which contains no actual chicken wing meat. Up next: spinach-free spynych?
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I always assumed that the fact that Red Bull stuck all the extra i's in their claim that "Red Bull gives you wiiings" was the only reason they weren't sued out of existence for false advertising.
ReplyDeleteRed Bull
ReplyDeleteRed Bull contains no red bulls
Any truth to the report that Wyld Stallyns will be recording the new DiGiorno jingle?
ReplyDeleteChicken dinosaurs also contain no actual dinosaur meat, yet they don't have to go through the motion of calling it a Chicken DynaSoar.
ReplyDeleteIn the future, everything we eat will be "fude".
ReplyDeleteAll chickens are dinosaurs.
ReplyDeleteFude Ingredients: Peepyl, water, acai berry extract, guar gum.
ReplyDeleteAs for the two false advertising issues presented in the post:
ReplyDelete1. "Red Bull Gives You Wings" is paradigmatic puffery--an exaggerated statement that no reasonable could believe is literally true, and thus can't be held to the truth thereof, and isn't a health-type claim (e.g., "cures cancer!") so is a tough one to win on. More pragmatically, other energy drink manufacturers don't sue because they themselves are likely making a bunch of questionable claims.
2. "Wyngz" made of chicken but not wing meat would be an interesting question if actually litigated. I expect a survey would show consumers believe that it's made of wing meat, but that the source of the chicken (wing v. other source) isn't likely to affect purchasing decisions. Example--NBA v. Motorola--statement that updates on basketball scores provided "direct from the arena" to sportspager was false (scores were drawn from wire coverage, not from Motorola staff in the arena) but not material, because the precise geographic source of scores didn't matter, rather than their currency/accuracy.
Boom. Lawyered.
ReplyDeleteI was curious about the legality of the Pom Wonderful ads with photos implying that Pom actually saves lives -- a bottle of Pom Wonderful with a noose around its neck with the slogan "Cheat Death," etc. (I didn't mind the one that had a bottle of Pom with a cape around it, "Antioxident Superhero."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pomwonderful.com/about/ads
But I see that the FTC filed a complaint against them in September, so it wasn't just me.
So, maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't "not wing" mean some better white meat than wing. Like my favorite part o the chicken -- the breasts. Or is that completely naive?
ReplyDeleteI want to follow up on Jim Bell's insight. The Slashfood piece says "Wyngz" is okay so long as, among other things, "the poultry has to be white chicken . . . ." If it is "white chicken," does that mean "white meat?" If so, and it is not from the wing, isn't it from the breast? In which case, who would complaint? Or is there some sort of white meat (or "white chicken") that I'm not aware of?
ReplyDeleteI guess there's a market for people who like food in the shape of wings but which doesn't contain bones.
ReplyDeleteThose people might include me, when I'm in a significant hurry to eat spicy white meat chicken.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I wasn't clear enough. Fude is peepyl! PEEEEEEEEPYLLLLLLL!!!!!!!
ReplyDelete