I hope they don't do a follow up video for the beef! I'd hate to know what's in it.
I have bad news for you: it's made from the corpses of dead cows.
Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
121–130 of 195 posts
Re: Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
#122Has HN jumped the shark? #cantbelievethisisatthetop
Content like this has reached the top from time to time for at least as long as I've been frequenting this site (about three years).
It's amusing to note that these comments generally come from people with new accounts. It's so prevalent, in fact, that the guidelines specifically state "If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)".
Re: Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
#123I'll disagree slightly with tptacek... this is a genius piece of marketing by McDonalds. It does everything that we routinely see listed on this very site as Best Practices™: - Respond to customer feedback in a friendly and highly transparent manner. - Don't sugarcoat things that "everyone knows but no one admits"; they could have avoided showing the graphic artist photoshopping the burger, but everyone knows that th…
McDonald's is in a fortunate/unfortunate position in that they can afford to have an ad campaign based upon honesty, because the unvarnished truth is still a lot better than the stuff that an awful lot of people already believe about them. I've heard many of these urban myths repeated in the wild by otherwise intelligent people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonalds_urban_legends My favourite fact about most of thes…
You know, I don't believe most of the urban legends about McDonalds, and there are things they do that I can even respect (for instance, their contribution to french fry science [really], or their [very, very, very, very] gradual adoption of humane farming guidelines.)
But make no mistake that McDonalds is a business that is, if not as harmful as Philip Morris, gradable on the same scale. For the most part it's a company whose core business model is "leverage unfathomably vast marketing resources to coerce large numbers of people into making the least healthful dietary choice available to them at any given moment".
Let nobody suggest that I am a foe of the french fry or the well-constructed burger, but there's a difference between an occasional indulgence --- or even between the ambient availability of that indulgence and any group of people's poor decision making [oh, hi, me!] --- and the business model that depends utterly on persuading the most persuadable people to harm themselves, for no other reason that they were persuadable.
And so it's in that light that I think cynicism towards new "honest" attempts at persuading people is fair game.
Also their burgers are pretty gross.
Re: Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
In re Campbell Soup Co. , 77 F.T.C. 664 (1970). It took all of 2 minutes to find the case. You have to know where to look. The case is not available digitally for free or as part of subscriptions to legal research databases to Lexis, Westlaw, etc. It is available digitally if you are willing to pay for individual access to the case; price varies depending on the LRD used. Note that the FTC has not ever actually issue…
That probably supports tptacek's contention (apologies if not your contention) that actual, specific rules do not really exist?
Correct. The "rules" are just guideposts. Campbell is essentially the FTC saying what a company should do in order to avoid an enforcement action (for food ads). You don't need to follow the rules set forth in Campbell, but then you run the risk that if your ad is even the slightest bit deceptive the FTC will come calling with a fine.
Re: Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
#125Props to macdonalds for this
Re: Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
#126I like that the video was filmed on Dundas west + Roncesvalles in toronto. McDonald's is one of the few fast food joints around there surrounded by an amazing selection of much nicer eats.
Re: Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
See In re Campbell Soup Co., 77 F.T.C. 664 (1970), which sets forth the basic rules. There are print copies available, but the case generally precedes the digitized archives available with subscriptions to legal research archives (i.e., Lexis/Westlaw). You are free to pay for access to the appropriate database if you actually need to read the case digitally.
Neat! How'd you find it? Do you have any idea what it says? I'd love to know what the basic rules are.
I typed in "food styling" and FTC into Google, and it was in every result on the first page. (I was not using personalized search but I do have cookies enabled, so your results may vary.) If you do not want to pay for the digital copy (I think it is $10 on Lexis for the case, not including search charges), you can go to your local bar association law library. Larger law libraries may have a copy of appropriate FTC rulings. Alternatively, a law school library will have a paperpound copy (but may charge non-students and non-alumni for entry).
In a nutshell, in Campbell, the company used marbles to stand-in for peas and other various vegetable ingredients. Someone complained that the ads were deceptive. The FTC pursued an enforcement action against the company. In its ruling, the FTC noted that a food product (and any ingredients) advertised must actually be the food product sold. Otherwise, the ad is deceptive.
The application to burger commercials: The advertised product must be an actual sample of the sold product. All of the ingredients in the sold product must be in the advertised product.
The ruling is not explicitly limited to the food products being advertised and sold, however it does not address any other ingredients except for those advertised and sold. Consequently, if a foodstuff is not part of the final sold product, the advertisement can use a stand-in. Consequently, the milk in cereal commercials can be glue (or paint), while the cereal in milk commercials can be plastic.
Re: Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
#128I happen to know that in the USA, they can (and presumably, do) use plastic replicas for their photography. (My wife saw the ones Dairy Queen used while she worked there. She says they look amazingly real, even up close)
And I happen to know that they can't. It's illegal. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4138305
Re: Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
#129Domino's put out a similar video a couple years ago: http://shine.yahoo.com/shine-food/dominos-gives-us-a-glimpse... (sorry, would have linked directly to the video but it doesn't seem to be allowed)
Someone copied it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m63gE5eySkU
Search for "Domino's Pulling the Cheese".
Re: Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
#130I'll disagree slightly with tptacek... this is a genius piece of marketing by McDonalds. It does everything that we routinely see listed on this very site as Best Practices™: - Respond to customer feedback in a friendly and highly transparent manner. - Don't sugarcoat things that "everyone knows but no one admits"; they could have avoided showing the graphic artist photoshopping the burger, but everyone knows that th…
"everyone knows that they use photoshop, so why bother?" I think this is a great comment, but I disagree a bit with the reasoning in this tiny bit of your comment. I think that it is important that they show exactly how much they "cheat" with photoshop because they only "cheat a little". If you're critical of McDonalds, you will assume that they photoshop and that they photoshop a lot. To combat such a misconception…
You go from "Cheat" to understanding that they're "Cleaning up the photo"
Viewers probably find themselves saying "That makes sense. I can see why they'd want to clean up the photo and missing seeds"