Kraft and Sara Lee have taken their wiener war to the courts again. The dispute: deceptive advertising. Somewhat to my disappointment the beef isn’t that Sara Lee’s Ball Park Franks aren’t really made at the ball park or that not every one loves Kraft’s Oscar Meyer Wieners. It’s rather about a “national taste test”:
Thousands of pages of pretrial filings by Sara Lee Corp. and Kraft Foods before Monday’s trial starts demonstrate that the stakes are high.
The question at the heart of the long-raging wiener war between the two Chicago-area-based companies: Was Kraft justified in asserting in advertisements that its Oscar Mayer brand frankfurters were better than Sara Lee’s Ball Park franks based on a national taste test?
What baffles me is that anybody could think that either of those two products are better than Vienna Beef. Or Hebrew National for that matter.
Plus I think that Americans are most sophisticated than that. Is anybody really persuaded by the claims made in an ad that the advertiser’s product is superior to a competitors? Doesn’t there need to be actual damage for a claim like this to proceed?
Its probably a Lanham Act case, for which I don’t believe a competitor needs to prove damages in order to prove false or misleading advertising. There are equitable remedies available such as product recalls, corrective advertising (“I’m sorry America for lying.”), refunds to customers, ceise and desist . . .
Sounds like a “full employment for plaintiffs’ attorneys” act to me.
Or it provides a new avenue of business competition. One can use the lawsuit to access competitor’s testing and its customer lists. I’m sure Kraft will come out of any negative judgment fine, but imagine a smaller up-and-coming business, with a new product and a little too much exuberance.
Or “full employment for corporate lawyers who like to run ad campaigns”
Which reminds me of a cookout I recently attended at which an executive of a meat company brought brats that usually only go to the restaraunt trade. Awesome. And so bad for you….
I love hot dogs–even bad ones. I don’t eat them very often because they’re so bad for you, but I could easily eat hot dogs several times a week. I agree with you that no one in their right mind would believe advertising about taste tests.
My favorite hot dogs? Best’s Kosher Beef Franks, made in Chicago since 1925. Sadly they ceased production a couple of years ago after being acquired by Sara Lee. They were profitable, but apparently not profitable enough. When I think of the perfect hot dog, I think of Best’s.