False Representations

[unixronin]

cymrullewes picked up a box of Hannaford's house-brand rice-chex clone breakfast cereal yesterday, choosing it over brand-name Chex largely, I understand, because the box showed the cereal containing raspberries.  Needless to say, it doesn't.

(Actually, she's since clarified that the cereal she bought was a different one than the one she exclaimed over just before the cell connection dropped.  But anyway....)

Advertisers do this all the time.  How many times have you bought a package of food with a picture on the front that dramatically fails to match the contents, and a little tiny small-print disclaimer hidden somewhere on the box that says something like "New Wonda Choccy Sowbugs can be a part of this nutritious breakfast"?  Note that nowhere does it actually state that New Wonda Choccy Sowbugs is actually nutritious, or actually contains what the picture on the box shows.  What's worse, if it's not a food product, the odds are not insignificant that there's another piece of small print hidden somewhere that says something like "Manufacturer does not warrant any fitness or suitability for any particular purpose."

The UK has something called the Trades Descriptions Act that is supposed to restrict stuff like this.  You have to be very careful about what you claim in an advertisement in the UK, because any day, a representative from the inspectorate of Weights and Measures can walk into your office carrying a package of your product that he bought at random off a store shelf, and say, "You make this claim about this product.  Show me, with this one, right here, right now."  And you'd better be able to back up the claim.

I think the US needs one too.  It could be quite simple; all it needs to do is say something like this:

"If you, a product manufacturer, make what a reasonable person would take as a representation, via a commercial advertisement, a marketing claim, or a package illustration, that your product contains or does something that in point of actual fact it does not, and any purchaser of the product complains that the product does not in fact live up to this representation, then you are legally obligated to make up the misrepresentation to every purchaser of the product."

Discuss.

Comments

[bbwoof.livejournal.com]

Um... do you remember the luscious-looking whole fried chicken on the front of the can of Crisco? If you were a non-English speaker, or did not know what Crisco is, would you buy it on the basis of that delicious chicken?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

That's not quite the same situation. The cereal is particularly a gray area because they're putting all kinds of stuff in breakfast cereal these days, and I can think of at least six brands of breakfast cereal that have freeze-dried strawberries in them (for example).

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

I've never assumed that my breakfast cereal came with fruit. I was just thrilled that Hannaford had a Crispix-clone. Now they just need to clone Golden Grahams. :-) No store has successfully cloned Quaker 100% Natural though. It's been my fortune that my favourite cereals don't have generics.