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Hershey's Sued for Misleading Package Designs
Or, why package designers shouldn't get too cutesy
A Florida woman has filed a lawsuit against candy giant Hershey's, alleging that the package designs are misleading. One of the offending packages is this Halloween-themed one, for Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins:
Turns out the actual candy is missing the facial features:
According to Reuters,
"[Plaintiff Cynthia Kelly] said she would not have paid $4.49 in October at an Aldi for a bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins, had she known that the candies not only lacked the 'cute looking' carved eyes and mouth shown on the packaging, but any carvings at all.
"The complaint said Hershey's labels 'are materially misleading and numerous consumers have been tricked and misled by the pictures on the products' packaging.'"
Other offenders include Reese's Peanut Butter Footballs with no laces and Ghosts with no eyes.
Kelly's seeking $5 million in damages.
I used to work in corporate package design, and have a question for those of you that did too: If anyone's getting fired, do you reckon it'll be someone in Graphics, or the Marketing person who undoubtedly requested the specifics of the images?
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In the packaging designer’s defense - it does say ‘decorating suggestion’ on the rendered / idealized version. Guess that fine print didn’t make it to production? Also, would love to see that executed with some skillful Xacto work!
…or that her cereal didn’t arrive in a bowl?
Is she also mad that they don’t have bites taken out of them already?
I've always wondered about this "idealization" of food product imagery for packaging. I've done a few projects where clients ask for their product to be premium-ized heavily and at times I've felt a bit icky about it. $5M feels like a lot, but the product does look considerably less impactful than portrayed on pack.