HERSHEY, Pa. (CBS) – A Florida woman is upset about the lack of designs on Reese’s holiday-themed peanut butter candy - and now she’s taking parent company Hershey to court over it.
Cynthia Kelly filed a federal class-action lawsuit Thursday in the U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Florida, alleging several Reese’s products don’t match their photos as depicted on the wrappers.
For example, Reese’s peanut butter pumpkins are merely pumpkin-shaped hunks of peanut-butter-stuffed chocolate, and the actual product has no Jack O’lantern-style carvings as the wrapper depicts, Kelly alleges.
I’m upset whenever a corporation is allowed to lie about a product for years without repercussions. I don’t care if it’s a trivial product like this or a clearly unsafe product like cigarettes or anything else. It doesn’t matter why the consumer consumes the product. It matters that the corporation was allowed to lie.
What’s the lie? The product is sold and marketed as being the shape of pumpkins, bats, etc. Not that they are carved.
When I look at the package, I’m under the impression that you could carve the faces out yourself, if you wanteded.
But more realistically, the faces are there to give kids some idea of what the shapes represent. It sets their imagination free.
Product images are never representative of what’s in the package, or do people also expect that a bite will already be taken from one when they purchase it, too?
The texture, color, scale and shape may be different from what you’re seeing on the package. They are sometimes close, but often not.
This is also very common with fast food and packaged goods. Hell, even the beautiful bananas and apples I see in grocery store flyers are bruised and damaged in the store. Who you gonna sue?
If a bread company promoted their toast bread by having PB&J in the shape of a smiley face on the package, or the bread was walking and talking in their commercial, is someone honestly going to expect that?
Marketing is marketing. The appearance of food is rarely ever what you actually get. And sometimes, imagination is required.
At most, Resses will remove the faces from the package and will be forced to refund uneaten portions. I don’t think it’s worth the effort, but she can try.
If they do end up losing, I wonder what prescience it sets for other food images.
What’s the point of giving a huge, extremely powerful corporation even more leeway to exaggerate the quality of their products?
Hopefully, like, the standard that the images on the packaging are reflective of the actual product, or severely labeled as exaggerations with a real description included elsewhere?
Maybe the point is that people need to stop being so naive about what they expect food products to look like.
There was no claim made that the candy sold was anything more than candy in the shape of Halloween items.
The latter is probably the most they’d be forced to do, since 99% of the problem here is that people have extremely unrealistic expectations.
Product packages, from the supermodels they showcase to the highly polished representations of the products have always been exaggerated and simulated to some degree. When did people lose all common sense believing they were getting the most ideal version if the item they were purchasing?
The law only requires that the product is what it says is being sold: ie. you don’t get apples if the package says oranges.
But if the photos show beautiful, bright oranges, and you get a few that are underripe and green looking, what complaint can be made? You can ask for a refund at the store, but you’d be an idiot if you thought suing Sunkist was reasonable.
I think a Karen was upset, realized there were other Karens who also have unreasonable expectations, and they decided to try for a lawsuit.
As much as I can’t stand corporations, especially ones profiting off the suffering of cows, I don’t see any legitimate complaint here.
Okay, I agree it is “common sense” that advertisements are not usually indicative of reality. But it is only “common sense” because we have a culture where people are allowed to sell products using misleading advertising.
Honestly, I think advertisements as they exist in our culture mainly prey on our evolutionary biases. They exploit our drives that were originally designed to help us survive. The fact they are misleading is the point, in order to increase profits. Frankly, I don’t think advertisements as they exist today are ethical at all, and I’d root for any party that wants to push to change that culture.
At what point would you draw the line of acceptability? Is it fine to advertise a fluffy loaf of delicious sourdough, and the product is a literal brick of hard tack? Is it fine to advertise a pair of denim jeans and receive polyester jeggings?
This is especially true when you must pay for the product before examining its contents. Sure, if your mesh bag of oranges at the store doesn’t look like the label, maybe you’re right that you should be fine with whatever you get, given that you can look at the product before purchasing. But what if you spent money buying a bespoke gift box of heirloom oranges as a present for a family member and they got a taped together amazon box with some green and half rotten oranges it in?
The promise of quality is part of the product. We could improve people’s lives substantially by requiring realitistic advertising. It’s learned helplessness to just accept the shit-cake because “well, you were stupid for expecting better”.
I do agree, especially the point that today’s advertising is unethical. I try to avoid marketing, and I shop based on unit price and never the photo on the box.
Current consumer laws do protect against certain forms of bad business practice.
If you’re sold apples, you shouldn’t be getting oranges. You should also have the expectation that what you are purchasing actually works and isn’t defective.
But so much of marketing portrays ideals or intangibles, so it’s hard to have laws protecting against it.
You buy hair color, expecting that it will make you beautiful, but that’s not reality. A lot goes into hair styling, and even the color you chose has to match your face, and your face has to be decent if you expect to look “beautiful”.
In marketing, products are all designed to make you stronger, more beautiful, faster, jump higher, “look cool”, be desirable to the opposite sex, be better in bed, have pro-level skills, etc. This is partly why ads can be so harmful to mental health: you are always inadequate unless you have their product.
At the end of the day, my advice to anyone is to avoid any and all forms of ads and marketing (if possible), and to be skeptical of what the package says/shows. Use a stores refund policy whenever you received something you weren’t expecting, and spend money based on your needs and not imaginary ideals.
Shit, they should just put some sugar, cocoa powder and peanut butter in little packets and make you make the cups yourself. Really would set your imagination free
I wonder how many people feel lied to when they buy a package of muffin mix, with a complete muffin on the photo, only to find out that they do have to make it themselves. 😒
They are marketed as carved.
Are they marketed as having a bite in them, too?
They are marketed as shaped, not carved. Even their website only makes mention of shape.
That picture is from their website. The bite is a common method of showing the interior of a food used very broadly. The other cutouts are unique to reeses. The York peppermint patties on the same website shaped like pumpkins dont possess those markings.
Right, the bites are on the photos, but one shouldn’t expect those in the package. Just like the carvings.
As I eluded to earlier, it’s possible that the faces were put there so that young children could better visualize what the shapes represent, but Reese makes no claims that they would be on the actually candy. And how could they be without becoming a crumby mess inside the package?