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 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.