Where’s the Beef? Taco Bell Sued Over ‘Meat Concoction’
UPDATE: The Bell wins!
Turns out the stuff I used to turn to after a wild Saturday night–aka the Beef Burrito Supreme at Taco Bell–may not have much beef, so says a lawsuit filed in Alabama:
“Our government, through the USDA and FDA, provides definitions, standards and labeling guidelines for ‘ground beef’; What Taco Bell is representing on their restaurant menu as ‘ground beef’ does not meet any of those definitions, standards and labeling guidelines,” explains Beasley Allen attorney Dee Miles. “This product does not qualify to be considered ‘ground beef’ and many of the seasoning ingredients are in fact binders, fillers and coloring. These ingredients increase the overall volume of this product, reducing the actual ‘beef’; content per serving. It is against the law in this country to take someone’s money for a product that is misrepresented. This lawsuit seeks to put a stop to that type of conduct and practice,” he says.
One reason I stopped eating at Taco Bell was I noticed it increased my overall volume. But I digress.
Taco Bell chimes in with this response:
“Taco Bell prides itself on serving high quality Mexican inspired food with great value. We’re happy that the millions of customers we serve every week agree. We deny our advertising is misleading in any way and we intend to vigorously defend the suit.”
What remains to be seen is how vigorously they’ll fight this allegation in the court of public opinion. Though this is certainly no finger in the chili or booger on the pizza, it can’t help the brand any if the suggestion that they aren’t using actual beef–or are using a lot of fillers–takes hold in the consumer mind. (The lawsuit’s use of the term “meat concoction” is going to be tough to overcome if it catches on.)
For the moment it appears they are weighing legal options. Their public response is (I assume) forthcoming….unless it truly is “We’ll see how this comes out in court.” That, my friends, is a dangerous proposition. Lawsuits take time, and in the interim between a court filing and a verdict, all that could be left of the Bell’s reputation may be an empty (taco) shell.
Without knowing if they have been caught doing something wrong or not, it’s tough to say what I’d do, other than be as transparent as legally possible as soon as possible. Tricky.
I’ll keep an eye on this one–at the very least their advertisements might get pulled or altered. In the meantime, assuming this lawsuit’s allegations are correct, what would you say if you were Taco Bell?
I had a comment from a loyal reader who fears this might change the future:
The aRT of the RT: Enthusiasm Levels
Mike Brown has nice handwriting. RT that.
I often meet my friend Mike Brown, the guru over at the Brainzooming Group, for coffee. Actually, Mike doesn’t drink coffee and cannot abide a place that smells like coffee, yet somehow we manage to meet at a local coffee spot every now and again to talk business, collaboration, creativity and the absurdities of life in general.
Speaking of absurdities, Mike is pretty active on Twitter (as am I) and a while back we were discussing the Art of the Retweet, or “RT” as it’s known on Twitter. If you’re into Twitter, you know that when you see something pretty cool that might be of interest to your Tweeps (readers, followers, etc.) you “retweet” it.
Example:
RT: @PRWeekUS Poll: Did Ricky Gervais misrepresent the Golden Globes as a host? http://www.prweekus.com/online-polls/section/990/
RT @MEAndersFit Looking at Pilate’s Cross by J. Alexander Greenwood @A_Greenwood at #smashwords http://smashwords.com/b/6806 Cannot wait to read this book! <This rocks! Thanks!>
RT @Brainzooming Blogging Challenges? Ideas for When You Find Blogging Difficult http://bit.ly/hLCaHJ #blogging #sm #writing #creativity <snarky>
How the News Media Can Frame an Issue
Click photo for source.
The long-awaited (yet largely ignored by the public as far as I can tell) Presidential Oil Spill Commission’s final report was issued last week, with a comprehensive examination of what happened before, during and after the fateful events on BP’s Deepwater Horizon platform. Certainly within the report there is plenty of fodder for Public Relations and crisis communications pros. One thing that struck me involves the way certain members of the media decided on a frame for their stories and stuck to it.
Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post picked out this nugget about CNN’s Anderson Cooper (emphasis mine):
From Chapter Five, page 139:
“Local resentment became a media theme and then a self-fulfilling prophesy. Even those who privately thought the federal government was doing the best it could under the circumstances could not say so publicly. Coast Guard responders watched Governor Jindal — and the TV cameras following him — return to what appeared to be the same spot of oiled marsh day after day to complain about the inadequacy of the federal response, even though only a small amount of marsh was then oiled. When the Coast Guard sought to clean up that piece of affected marsh, Governor Jindal refused to confirm its location. Journalists encouraged state and local officials and residents to display their anger at the federal response, and offered coverage when they did. Anderson Cooper reportedly asked a Parish President to bring an angry, unemployed offshore oil worker on his show. When the Parish President could not promise the worker would be ‘angry,’ both were disinvited.“
“This unattributed statement is completely false . . . [the claim] that it was journalists who were encouraging residents and state and local leaders to ‘display their anger at the federal response’ is offensive.”
The Dream
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’” –Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968)
Ramble On
Every now and again I start feeling like Larry King and ramble. So, you’ve been warned…
As I said in the comments section of Spin Sucks, I think that Kraft went for the easy two-fer in hiring homeless “golden voiced” sensation Ted Williams to do their mac ‘n cheese ad. Great PR and a decent VO. Hard to say I wouldn’t have advised them to do the same thing. (From a VO perspective, yeah, his voice doesn’t ring “mac ‘n cheese” to me, but it works okay.) And if Mr. Williams goes haywire down the road (his personal demons are pretty nasty), Kraft still comes out smelling like a cheese, er, rose, for giving the guy a chance…I have a hard time giving a free pass to practitioners of extreme political speech in this Tucson nightmare. If you create an atmosphere of “anything goes” in your rhetoric, some people aren’t going to get that it’s rhetoric. Instead they’re going to get whatever approval their sick brains need to start shooting…I ran for state legislature in Oklahoma a few years ago and I’ll never forget a candidate debate where my opponent “accidentally” had a “slip of the tongue” and called me “Mr. Gaywood.” An unamusingly clumsy, juvenile, bizarre (and inaccurate, I might add) remark aimed at inciting prejudice, he was practically booed offstage. He won the election anyway…Shoveling snow is good exercise but boring as hell…circling back to Kraft for a moment I’ll just add that sometimes nothing will do except a grilled cheese…I have to believe that the press release as we know it is dead, though I keep trying to resurrect it…I think Jeff Bridges is terrific in True Grit but relieved the Coen Bros didn’t try to “top” John Wayne’s “Fill yer hands you sonofabitch!” scene…
instead they played it straight and let the Duke’s iconic moment stand as the definitive of the two…I cannot believe it will be summer before I will see new Breaking Bad–best show on TV–and wow, next Halloween before I get more Walking Dead is deadly awful…having a two-year-old daughter is like being in love with a totally unbalanced person: exhilarating but a bit worrisome…I could really use a boat drink and a few days on Cabbage Beach…reading T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Lawrence was a fantastic writer. His turns of phrase and elegant, self-deprecating prose fill me with envy and appreciation. It should be required reading for any aspiring writer. I also think it should have been required reading for any nation considering invasion/war in the area once known as Persia…Brussels sprouts are the steak of the vegetable world…sorry the Chiefs couldn’t hang on for more than one playoff game, but proud of ‘em anyway…will not be watching basketball–lost all interest in it…and for now Greenwood out.
Did I Build Facebook Fans with My Contest?
If you read my last post, you know I instituted a Trivia Contest on my novel’s Facebook page to:
* Generate buzz about the book
* Add new fans to the book’s Facebook page
* Add new readers by getting people to download a free sample of the ebook
* Sell books by converting sample readers into buyers of the entire ebook or paperback
Without repeating the whole blog post, I’ll get to the results, goal by goal, after the three-day contest (which was promoted on Facebook, Twitter and Google Buzz):
Goal: Generate buzz about the book
Results: Well, my Facebook Page Insights showed two new subscribers (far short of my goal of 10 new “fans”) but views and feedback were up approx. 50% and 60%, respectively. Not bad.
Goal: Add new readers by getting people to download a free sample of the ebook
Results: Six samples downloaded in three days. Again, not bad!
Goal: Sell books by converting sample readers into buyers of the entire ebook or paperback
Results: Eight ebooks sold! Though I cannot definitively ascribe these sales directly to the contest it’s still very encouraging.
Also, I only had a small number of people enter the contest–and I understand why: it was labor intensive! To enter you had to become a Facebook “fan” of the book, then you had to answer three trivia questions which could only be answered by downloading a free sample of the book and reading it–in less than three days. All that considered, I think this promotion was a qualified success. There was buzz, I sold a few copies–and I certainly look forward to autographing those prize winners’ paperbacks.
Any thoughts? Have you done a similar contest? Any suggestions for doing it better?
Innovation Idea: Everybody Works on Wednesday!
My friends at LandaJob Advertising & Marketing Talent here in Kansas City are taking the bull by the horns when it comes to temp hiring.
Check out this excerpt from the Kansas City Business Journal –perhaps it will inspire you to find ways to innovate–even if it’s taking a page from your favorite movie:
“…[the] staffing firm is offering its own spin on bolstering hiring of temporary workers.
The company will spring for the wages of each of its temporary employees every Wednesday in January as part of an “Everybody Works on Wednesday” program. The company borrowed the name for the program from the 1993 movie, “Dave.”
“There’s a sense that things are getting better in the economy, and we want to provide financial encouragement to employers who’ve been postponing hiring talent to move their projects forward,” company founder and President Landa Williams said in a release.
The company, founded in 1985, provides temporary staffing and full-time direct hire for jobs in advertising, marketing, corporate communications and graphic services. The company expects to pass 1 million total hours of temp staff placements during the first quarter.
via LandaJob Advertising & Marketing Talent seeks to bolster temp hiring | Kansas City Business Journal.
Finding a catchy, positive hook that is easily implemented is the secret. I wouldn’t be surprised if LandaJob’s phones are ringing right now with inquiries from temp-hungry companies.
What ideas has your business used to stimulate growth in this economy? The comments section awaits!
