The difference between what is advertised and what is sold over the counter seems huge.
- author, Lucy Hooker
- scroll, BBC Business Correspondent
Chris is a big burger fan. He would buy one on the way home whenever he was running late. Or for dinner with the kids. Or sometimes for a quick snack to settle your stomach.
However, more than once he was found sending photos of his dinner to burger-loving friends and colleagues so they could laugh.
The difference between what is advertised and what is sold over the counter seems huge.
“Most of the time, it looks like a throwaway,” he says.
So when he heard that Burger King customers in America were taking the company to court, it caught his attention.
“You feel cheated,” says the 42-year-old from south London, who declined to give his last name. “But who wants to complain? You just suck it up.”
Burger King said the burgers it sells do not necessarily look “exactly like the picture” and that all products featured in its advertising material are “the same as those delivered to customers across the UK”.
But customers sometimes find the gap between image and delivery undermines trust.
Disgruntled customers cite other examples: ice cream served with whole almonds but only slivers, pizza toppings lacking, salads expensive but poor quality.
Melted cheese
debt, Personal archive
Chris is often disappointed after seeing hamburgers in commercials.
Amy Wardle, president of Aster, a food marketing firm based in New York and Philadelphia, says a rule of thumb is that images promoting food should not contain non-preparation ingredients.
But that still leaves room for maneuver.
If the intention is to promote the bread, you can place sponges between the slices to give the sandwich a more complete appearance, he says.
To give a pizza slice a “cheese pulling” effect, add extra cheese taken from multiple pizzas of the same size.
Cereal can be photographed in a bowl with cola because it is less moist than milk.
Hamburgers in commercials often have “skeletons” made of toothpicks to keep the bun from slipping in the mayonnaise, Wardle says.
“It’s not like I’m going to wear something fake,” says Wardle. “[Mas] I’ll choose from dozens of slices of bread to find the perfect loaf that doesn’t wrinkle or damage.”
“I’m going to get my little scissors and make sure the edge of the bread is level, so there aren’t any crumbs left by the machine hanging down.”
“Then I’ll use fresh lettuce that’s not dark and has the right frills. I want red tomatoes.”
The image shows a woman assembling a plate for a promotional photo shoot
She admits that the promotional image for the Burger King Whopper – the American case for the hamburger – makes the meat in the burger look bigger than the bun it’s placed on.
Maybe the hamburger you bought was wrapped under a heat lamp, causing the bun to squish a little, she says.
But maybe the burger was taken out before the fire, or a particularly small bun was used, making the meat appear “overdone.”
In theory, Wardle says, the stylist could have cut the back of the burger and spread it horizontally.
exaggerated
There is no specific rule against using these techniques in the United States, says Mark Bartholomew, a law professor at the University of Buffalo in New York, unless the image is a false representation of the product.
But there is a gap, he explains. Consumers are expected to be smart enough to know that advertisements contain a certain amount of “hype”.
“The bottom line here is, has anyone been cheated out of their money?” he asks. “Did anyone really think they were going to get a TV version of the vapper?”
In the US case, Burger King in Florida could argue that no one expected their burger to look like the poster, he suggests.
The judge has already dismissed charges related to Burger King’s promotional images, allowing it to consider only allegations about in-store images, Bartholomew says.
While we know there can be exaggerations in advertising, images at the point of sale are considered close to being part of the contract – you see it, you hear it – and that’s what will be discussed in court.
But Professor Bartholomew says cases based on misleading images have so far rarely been successful because they are so subjective.
And the US Federal Trade Commission does not intervene in such cases.
In the UK, the rules are a little stricter, although the basic principle is the same: advertising images must not be misleading.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is responsible for regulating advertising images, excluding images in shops and on menus, according to its spokesman Toby King.
Small hands
In case of doubts, it is up to the companies to provide evidence that their images show the genuine product.
“We know consumers are smart. They understand that ads aren’t true. But there’s a threshold. Our job is to decide when that threshold has been crossed,” says King.
The ASA banned images including a KFC ad in 2005. At that point, the agency sent employees out to buy a chicken fillet burger.
“In this case, KFC said the model holding the snack has small hands,” says King.
In 2010, a Burger King ad was again banned for size reasons. “If we see a misrepresentation, we ban the ad,” he says.
South Londoner Chris never stops buying burgers. But he prefers that companies use candid advertising photos.
“A hamburger doesn’t even exist like it was in a weightless environment,” he says. “They should be proud of their real product.”
