$13m lawsuit proves Red Bull doesn't give you wings

Unbelievable, but it seems to be true.

Click HERE to read the full article.

It is hard to imagine that anyone who saw Red Bull's advertising slogan would actually believe the caffeinated soft drink "gives you wings", but in litigation-hungry America the claim has been officially falsified.

Benjamin Careathers, a regular consumer of the fizzy drink, sued the company for false advertising, arguing that after 10 years drinking Red Bull he neither had wings nor any enhanced athletic or intellectual performance.

According to the complainant, the Austria-based firm deliberately misled unsuspecting customers to spend millions of pounds on the premium drink in the hope of gaining an edge on their competitors.
And fearful of a costly and time-consuming trial, Red Bull was forced to settle the case out of court, pledging to refund $10 to any US customer who bought the drink since 2002 and agreeing to amend future advertising.

Imaging the lawsuits if it did give you wings!

I've got a Red Bull T-shirt (got it free from a promotion and whatever you do, NEVER mention free stuff and where to me as I've got a reputation.

Judge Judy/Rinder'd have a field day.

I love this story. It shows the power of advertising and false claims made by them. We all know RedBull doesn't give you wings but at the same time millions of people around the world are paying premier prices for what is basically a caffine fix, but believing it's delivering more. I liken it to the fad of drinking 'Spring' water. People in rich western world countries are going into shops and buying bottles of water that are more expensive than the equivalent cost of the same volume of petrol!

Well done to that man who thought of that law suit!

Yes we all know RedBull doesn't give you wings and I'll bet that guy did too. He was just looking for a quick way to get rich. So I say shame on him.

I doubt he will make any money off it. He was bored and wanted a way to get his name in the paper. I use energy drinks; unfortunately my job requires me to be more animated than my usual self. I buy the cheapest available (currently Monster). It does not give me wings but it does make me talk fast.

I hear if you visit the Red Bull website, and fill out a form that claims you ever drank red bull, the company will send you $10 or a $10 supply of Red Bull - which is a result of this law suit.

Very interesting idea to get consumers filling out a form saying that they have drunk red bull presumably with out any ill effects!!!!

What do they normally pay for personal information? $10 might actually be cheap for them to get certified info about you ;o)

They probably don't have to pay for personal information. When they advertise the company website, you visit it maybe then Google analytics serves up information in real time data about the unique visitors to their site. It will even tell you country origin of your visitors.

Proxy server / VPN. I can change country at will.

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Originally Posted by wizard509

Yes we all know RedBull doesn't give you wings and I'll bet that guy did too. He was just looking for a quick way to get rich. So I say shame on him.

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I say WELL DONE to him. It's about time people took seriously the fact that we are lied to on a permanent basis by advertising. Let's see more lawsuits, more and more and more. Sue the hell out of those people who persuade fat or spotty women to buy slimming on clear skin creams that simply don't work. Sue the hell out of those who persuade the weak willed that wearing one type of perfume will help you get laid. I have nothing against advertisers, but I do against liars.

There is a difference between using hyperbole and lying. I believe the Red Bull case is the former. Lawsuits like this should never see court action. Should have been tossed out immediately.

Mike

The difference between using hyperbole and lying is semantic when your target audience do not see the difference. It maybe does not refer to "flying" in the scientific sense. But if so, what does it refer to? The court clearly agreed and I'm pleased it did. When I advertise my services, and I do, I have no problem that my claims should not only be accurate but verifiably so. Advertisers do their utmost to mislead the customer into buying the product and anything that stops them doing so is OK in my book.

Oh, Frank. What they did was settle a nuisance suit before going to court. It was merely cheaper than their lawyers plus the unpredictable nature of a jury...X number of which they know will award something all the while wishing they had thought of suing. That's the nature of people.

Buying a cheap chemical cocktail sold on a street corner as a health elixir because a charlatan knows how to play people and is unconcerned that he is spinning lies. That's the nature of people. And that's why, in a society obsessed with protecting us against Jihad terrorists, we should also have institutions around that guard the weak, the uneducated and the impressionable against those charlatans.

I'm with Frank on this one. It reminds me of all the people you see around buying/carrying bottled water. WTF is that all about? I can't remember a single case of someone keeling over and dying from drinking tap water in the UK. However people seem quite happy about buying bottles of water at well above the price of the equivalent quantity of fuel :confused:

"Bottled Water gives you Water Wings".

Nuisance lawsuits are just that. Use to be that advertising claims (such as this one) were judged by whether a reasonable person would not understand the hyperbole. I contend that no reasonable person can misunderstand their advertising.

There is a TV commercial on here in the US that shows how the people who sleep there gain extra-intelligence. Again, no reasonable person will believe the "claim." There is a line item in all corporate financials for the settling of nuisance suits. Settling such suits is not only cheaper but stock holders see it as prudent. Sometimes it just isn't better to prove who's right and wrong.

But if you and Frank want to indulge in the fantasy that such suits serve the public interest, well, it is your right to do so.

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Originally Posted by Egg Bramhill

I'm with Frank on this one. It reminds me of all the people you see around buying/carrying bottled water. WTF is that all about?

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I remember the movie 1984 with John Hurt, and there's a scene in a cafeteria where glass bottled water was a part of the lunch provided. I remember thinking, "Why would a single serving of water need to be bottled?" I found the idea (at the time) very strange. Can't you just drink a glass from the tap, why buy a bottle of it? Needless to say, the modern concept of buying bottles of water in a store, I still find as out of the ordinary, despite its prevalence today.

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Originally Posted by mwenz

Nuisance lawsuits are just that. Use to be that advertising claims (such as this one) were judged by whether a reasonable person would not understand the hyperbole. I contend that no reasonable person can misunderstand their advertising.

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I believe that is still a rule of thumb in most Western countries (in underdeveloped countries the rules are far more lax, to the delight of Western advertisers). However, that does not take into account the hundreds of times that that message is hammered at us from all directions. If you tell an intelligent child enough times that she is dumb and nothing in her environment tells her the opposite, then she will start to believe that she is dumb. That is the basic premise of advertising. And since many intelligent children are borne into families where institutionalised stupidity and reliance on reality TV reigns, the odds are against that child getting a balanced view of the value of the products being hammered at her. That's why taking a stand against Red Bull is important. If you want to indulge in the fantasy of "advertising is harmless" then be my guess. The odds are you believe drinking milk is both normal and good for you. If that is the case, thank advertising, not science.

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Originally Posted by mwenz

But if you and Frank want to indulge in the fantasy that such suits serve the public interest, well, it is your right to do so.

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I'll happily indulge in the fantasy all day long that anything that lessens the vice-like grip of advertisers on man and his dependants can only be a massive step forward for humanity.

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Originally Posted by mwenz

There is a TV commercial on here in the US that shows how the people who sleep there gain extra-intelligence.

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Hey, good luck with that... god knows America needs more intelligence. The French are just as stupid and gullible as any other nationality. They just get hammered by less (in quantity and perniciousness) advertising than Americans do.

Bottled drinking water. Please don't get me started on that one.

I also have to agree with Big Frank here, rather than mwenz on the point that advertising is part of the ruin of intellect, and requires some kind of maiming to prevent its overly powerful influence on society. If that means socalled frivolous law suits against them should be pre-eminent, I'm fine with that. While I don't want frivolous law suits to run amok, since big corporate advertising to a large degree is one big lie, I don't think this example is frivolous at all.

Not all business advertising are lies, at least not most small businesses. I've created advertising for my little graphics shop, but the promoted concepts are touching upon what unique services I provide. I've never lied in advertising I've done for my company - why can't big business try to do the same?

OK. My last post in this thread.

I could care less whom agrees with whom. Advertising ruins absolutely nothing. It (advertising) cannot change anyone's intellect.

The person who sought untold sums of money is wrong. It (this attitude) of wanton suing is part of what is wrong with society. Personally, I think Red Bull made a silk purse out of a pig's ear here...and more power to them for choosing this path. They would have never been able to devise an advertising campaign for any amount of money for the advertising this generated. Heck, they paid out pennies on the dollar. Pretty smart.

While some may be too thick to realize it, or perhaps don't care, we all pay for frivolous lawsuits. Every day we spend any money, part of those dollars or cents go to fund frivolous lawsuits.

That is not to say that advertisers shouldn't be held accountable and, if cause is found, the regulatory bodies who oversee such claims should order the change. I believe these regulatory bodies ought to review advertising at the start of a lawsuit for such crap. Only if the advertising is found culpable should the lawsuit proceed...else it should get the toss.

I agree that regulatory bodies should be the ones to curb reckless advertising, and not frivolous lawsuits, but due to overly powerful lobbying groups, I don't see that happening unless governments have a serious change in attitude towards them.

The courtroom concept of "the reasonable man" is completely out of touch with reality. Advertising should be true, period. When it makes allusions to concepts that could easily be misinterpreted by the stupid at whom it is aimed, then it should be reigned in with heavy penalties for transgressors. Regulatory bodies have no million-dollar lobby groups and until they do they will be harassed, attacked and set upon by those who do and whose only interest is to make a buck and damn the consequences.

Advertising largely pays for the TV that we watch. I'm simply insisting that if a face cream is advertised as "scientifically proven" then that should make absolutely clear that the laboratory was a sponsored one and on a token sample of just 30 women. And even then millions of gullible women seeking eternal youth will buy this incredibly expensive cream on the basis of that completely unscientific test. Go figure.

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Originally Posted by Big Frank

Advertising largely pays for the TV that we watch. I'm simply insisting that if a face cream is advertised as "scientifically proven" then that should make absolutely clear that the laboratory was a sponsored one and on a token sample of just 30 women. And even then millions of gullible women seeking eternal youth will buy this incredibly expensive cream on the basis of that completely unscientific test. Go figure.

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Its like lots of advertising for all kinds of products that are stated to be "clinically proven" - what exactly does "clinically proven" mean? I find that it often means absolutely nothing, almost to the point that any product that states this is so, means look elsewhere for a different, but similar product that doesn't make such a claim or applies some verifiable proof.

Along the same lines ...

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The well-known advertising slogan for Whiskas was "eight out of ten owners said their cat prefers it". After a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority, this had to be changed to "eight out of ten owners who expressed a preference said their cat prefers it".

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I doubt even that!

Source

"eight out of ten owners who were then promised a case of Whuskas a month for a year and expressed a preference said their cat prefers it".

Don't drink RedBull. I rather keep my body and mind healthy

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Pilates for health

What a lie, they tried red bull on a certain lady product (they use it every month) and see it now has wings. ;o)