RE: 2024 US Presidential Election
February 9, 2024 at 5:43 am
(This post was last modified: February 9, 2024 at 5:48 am by Rev. Rye.)
(February 8, 2024 at 11:48 pm)Belacqua Wrote: The earliest case I know of was the false advertising lawsuit made by the Center for Science in the Public Interest against the Coca Cola company.
Coca Cola was marketing a drink called "Vitamin Water," with endorsements from athletes, which strongly implied that the drink was healthy. In fact it was mostly sugar water.
Coca Cola's lawyers argued that "no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitaminwater was a healthy beverage.” Because nobody should believe what ads say. In that case the judge wasn't satisfied with the argument, but standards appear to have slipped since then.
I suspect that there might be earlier examples of people/corporations using this sort of arguments in bad faith. That said, I know there are roots in a legitimate argument. Like this fake Campari ad that Hustler published:
![[Image: campari_internal.jpg]](https://vinepair.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/campari_internal.jpg)
Naturally, even if it was very much in the style of a then-current ad campaign for Camp, it should go without saying that anyone with two brain cells to rub together that there was no way that a famous Southern Baptist preacher would A) do a liquor ad, B) openly admit that he lost his V-card to his mother, and C) wouldn't end this ad by outright saying that he could only say the shit he does if he were drunk.
But Falwell sued for libel and lost because the ad was such an obvious fake that nobody in their right mind would take it seriously.
Or this ad:
Pepsi aired an ad where they said that, with 7,000,000 Pepsi points (with a cash value of $700,000), they could buy a Harrier Jet (estimated value at the time: $37.4 million). One person discovered the "cash value" loophole and sent Pepsi a check for $700,000 and change for the Harrier Jet. He sued when they didn't give him the Harrier Jet. The judge sided with PepsiCo because, despite this offer, the way this scenario was portrayed (seriously, a kid whose bollocks have barely dropped yet can land the Air Force's top fighter jet in his fucking schoolyard with ease? Also, even with this grainy VHS quality, it's clear that the plane's CGI) was so preposterous that they didn't think anyone should have been able to take it seriously. Nevertheless, they made a modified version of the ad where they both give it a more reasonable 700,000,000 Pepsi Point value (cash value of $70 million) and clarified that it was just a joke (plus, apparently, due to regulations, the Harrier Jet could only be sold to civilians if it were "Demilitarized," which would have required it be stripped of its ability to take off vertically or land).
Evidently, some less scrupulous lawyers saw a Get Out of Jail Free Card with this defense and applied it with everything.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
![[Image: harmlesskitchen.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/yxR97P23/harmlesskitchen.png)
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
![[Image: harmlesskitchen.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/yxR97P23/harmlesskitchen.png)
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.