

Ask HN: Why do fast food companies get away with this advertising? - duncan_bayne

This guy walks into a bunch of different fast food joints, orders food, and then asks them to re-make it to be closer in appearance to their advertisements.<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=XrZFM2nvLXA<p>It got me to thinking ... if this were any other industry, this sort of advertising would be beyond the pale.<p>Imagine if a car manufacturer advertised their cars looking glossy and well equipped by default, and then when you turned up to the dealer, they were half-painted, rusty, and missing half the kit featured in the ads.<p>How is it that this seems to be okay for fast food manufacturers?  Or is it done in all industries, and I&#x27;m just being blind to it?
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quantisan
You might want to check out this McDonald's photo shoot video
[http://youtu.be/oSd0keSj2W8](http://youtu.be/oSd0keSj2W8)

Everything on photos must be the exact same ingredients sourced for the menu.
What's different is the efforts put into making and presenting them. Same
ingredients, but 100X man-hours put into it.

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duncan_bayne
Hmmmm ... so perhaps my analogy wasn't quite right. But there's still the fact
that you simply can't get a burger looking like the ad from any Mc Donald's
store I know of. _Surely_ that's fraud?

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frostmatthew
Comparing cars to food isn't a very good comparison since [on average]
appearance is a much higher factor in a buying decision for the former. Think
of all the times you've gone into a restaurant and ordered something from the
menu without having _any_ idea what it looks like. Have you ever purchased a
car site-unseen?

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smeyer
On the subject of cars, I recall seeing lots of tv ads for cars that featured
options that were non-standard.

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bowlich
A better analogy would be sushi. I've definitely cut out sushi restaurants
from list if the presentation or construction of the sushi roll is done
poorly.

