Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
adage.com
adage.com
- Respond to customer feedback in a friendly and highly transparent manner.
- Don't sugarcoat things that "everyone knows but no one admits"; they could have avoided showing the graphic artist photoshopping the burger, but everyone knows that they use photoshop, so why bother? Show everything and customers will trust you more.
- Use social stuff like Twitter to encourage customer feedback. It will create a positive loop that encourages others to follow and interact with their main corporate account.
- Respond before something is actually important. This one isn't showcased so strongly - this isn't a pressing issue by any measure - but they still took the time to respond to it and make a brief, informative, and actually engaging video about it, without some external "we screwed up, sorry" event. Interacting with customers like this before problems arise is simply awesome.
Well done, McDonalds.
Why does the ad burger patty appear thicker and larger?
Edit: So many answers talking about how they might make a quarter pound patty look larger. Anyone can do that. I was addressing the fact that the video in no way covers why they look larger in advertisements. Sidestepping the important question (selling false images, a product made differently) is what makes this merely a good marketing piece, and not any sort of honest explanation from McDonalds.
Again a good explanation, but it doesn't make it any less of a lie to show a larger patty.
I'm not actually sure the meat does look smaller if you lined up the photos to take the optical illusion out of it.
1) they stack up all pickles/onions/etc in the front for ads.
2) the real burger goes in a box and the steam makes the bun shrink a little
Also, they didn't say it but they showed it:
The burger is cooked differently for the ad. I got the impression they were just grilling it to make it look good but with minimal cooking (I wonder if it's even safe to eat the ad one). If you've ever cooked a burger, you'll know they shrink when you cook them.
IIRC, in the Burger King ads they heat thin metal strips and use them to sear lines into the patty, giving the "flame-grilled" illusion without having to cook and shrink the patty.
3:05 – 3:12
In the Metafilter thread, someone mentioned that on a styling shoot they'd been on, it appeared to be common practice the butterfly the back of the burger and manipulate it such that the patty appears thicker. I assume by front-loading the bulk of the patty toward the camera.
That may or may not have been done, but it's an example of a trick that abides by the "must be the same stuff as is sold" rule but would still result in a larger-looking patty. I think we can assume that not every little trick made it into the few-minute edit of the few-hour styling process, and likely the tricks selected for the final edit were the least deceptive.
I would point to the scene where they're rolling the patty on the skillet to flatten the edges. That, combined with possibly less squishing by the press and less cooking overall would give you thicker edges in particular, making the patty look bigger in the ad. We only see the edge and overall width, after all, not the whole patty.
I aggree that if it shrunk uniformly, then it would make the contents look proportionally bigger.
Why does the ad burger patty appear thicker and larger?
Which to mst people would be a question of appearance, not intent.
Q: Why does the ad burger patty appear thicker and larger?
A: Because we made it *this* way [show process].
A: Because we wanted to show off all the ingredients in the
best possible light, to encourage you to buy it.
A: Because we made it *this* way.
Q: Why?
A: Because it makes the burger look good and it shows
you what's in it.
Q: Why?
A: Because if the burger looks good and you know what's
in it, you'd be more likely to buy it.
Q: ???
A: Profit!!!
I think this is a great comment, but I disagree a bit with the reasoning in this tiny bit of your comment.
I think that it is important that they show exactly how much they "cheat" with photoshop because they only "cheat a little". If you're critical of McDonalds, you will assume that they photoshop and that they photoshop a lot. To combat such a misconception it is important to show how little you need to photoshop by showing "all of it".
But other than that, I agree with you. Well done, McDonalds. I don't like your food, but I appreciate your honesty.
Viewers probably find themselves saying "That makes sense. I can see why they'd want to clean up the photo and missing seeds"
They built an elaborate marketing video on "how our advertising tricks you".
The get the benefits of being honest with none of the cost. It's a total win.
Plus for me its fun to see it.
I used to be from the school of thought that this marketing was "bad" or misleading the consumer. I think quite the contrary now. I've found that most buying behavior is ridiculously irrational and that marketing is effectively just exposing that human weakness.
BMW ad that shows a smart middle aged man with a beautiful women? That actually can be true. You don't buy a BMW for it's utility (getting from A to B), you buy it for the potential experience (getting from A to B with a hot blonde). Otherwise you go with the Smartcar. BMW marketing is just giving you ideas of what that potential experience can be. It's up to you to use the tool to create the experience.
I totally agree about advertising exposing a human's weakness.
Regarding BMW, I know someone who purchased a BMW just to go to auto club meets and meet new people. So far, he says the car has landed him opportunities he would have missed by not driving the car and surprisingly, it has impressed some ladies. I'm not one to comment on the quality of his new 'contacts' but it is what it is.
I have to admit, that is a new one. Did he purchase an M5 or other super expensive/powerful BMW to go to auto club meets? Or other model? In some areas of the USA, a 3/5/7 series BMW is a run of the mill luxury car.
In San Francisco, every 10th car is a 3 series. I wish I was joking.
Like he said, most people think it's a much more expensive car than it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonalds_urban_legends
My favourite fact about most of these is that they allege that McDonald's is using a disgusting ingredient which would almost certainly wind up more expensive than the real thing. Hamburger-grade beef sells for, what, four dollars a pound? Probably a lot less if you have McDonalds' buying power. What do you think worm meat costs?
But make no mistake that McDonalds is a business that is, if not as harmful as Philip Morris, gradable on the same scale. For the most part it's a company whose core business model is "leverage unfathomably vast marketing resources to coerce large numbers of people into making the least healthful dietary choice available to them at any given moment".
Let nobody suggest that I am a foe of the french fry or the well-constructed burger, but there's a difference between an occasional indulgence --- or even between the ambient availability of that indulgence and any group of people's poor decision making [oh, hi, me!] --- and the business model that depends utterly on persuading the most persuadable people to harm themselves, for no other reason that they were persuadable.
And so it's in that light that I think cynicism towards new "honest" attempts at persuading people is fair game.
Also their burgers are pretty gross.
Some people must think they taste "good enough", given their popularity. Convenience and price obviously play big roles here, but they are also likely choosing McDonalds over other options on at least some basis of taste.
> But make no mistake that McDonalds is a business that is, if not as harmful as Philip Morris, gradable on the same scale. For the most part it's a company whose core business model is "leverage unfathomably vast marketing resources to coerce large numbers of people into making the least healthful dietary choice available to them at any given moment".
In Australia, they actually [no doubt due to social pressures] a large range of "healthy options" that are actually half-decent. I'm not sure whether they offer this stuff in the US, but compared to the numerous fried chicken, roast chicken and Burger King restaurants here, they are leagues ahead.
Note that I'm not defending their past behaviour-which I think we can agree was abysmal-but they have at least tried to reform and for a business of their size and brand, is no easy feat.
UPDATE: And I didn't like it in the US either.
This was surprising to me. You can make a much better burger than McDonalds in 10 minutes with standard equipment. Just take some minced meat, form it into a flat cylinder, rub some olive oil salt and pepper, cook it in a frying pan, after you turned it around add (real) cheese on top and cook the other side, slice a bread in two and roast it a little in the same pan, and stack up the burger with some lettuce, tomato and some mustard and/or ketchup. Why can't a company whose primary purpose is to make burgers not make a burger half as good? It's not like the ingredients here are more expensive. Or do people really prefer McD's burgers?
Don't get me started on restaurants that use canned peppers and mushrooms that make the whole pizza wet and acidic. Also: http://popsop.com/wp-content/uploads/kraft_cheese_snack_befo... WTF? "Natural cheese made with 2% milk no added growth hormones"
Can't comment about US ones.
> "but there's a difference between an occasional indulgence"
Indeed...
> "and the business model that depends utterly on persuading the most persuadable people to harm themselves, for no other reason that they were persuadable"
You've lost me. You compare McDonald's to Philip Morris - even though one produces a highly addictive substance and the other produces (crappy) hamburgers. Last I checked, burgers are non-addictive.
In what way is McDonald's core business model dependent on something more than "occasional indulgence"? If we are to play the game that a business can only succeed if people are mindlessly, constantly, repetitively consuming its products, then we should be beating down the doors of, say, Redbox. After all, their business model works best if everyone sat on their asses all day doing nothing but watch movies.
I do not see the argument at all that McDonald's business hinges on the abusively high consumption of their foods. They are in no way worse than any number of peddlers of less-than-healthy foods. Where is the outrage for Ben & Jerry's? Frito Lay? Campbell's?
Frito Lay is possibly even more morally fraught than McDonalds, since a large part of their business involves marketing themselves into kids lunches.
I'm not sure where Campbells comes into this. It's not great soup, but it's soup.
Obviously, there are people who think there's nothing wrong with a particularly successful marketing campaign for an unhealthful product. There are plenty of people who think there's nothing immoral about selling cigarettes.
I don't think less of those people, but I strongly disagree with them.
This is the same thing as pointing to the banks for selling CDOs. Risky for the banks? No. Risky for the whole system to collapse? Yes. Since systematic risks are largely not direct risks they never get counted as risks to begin with, and therefore do not impact decision making.
"A growing body of medical research at leading universities and government laboratories suggests that processed foods and sugary drinks made by the likes of PepsiCo Inc. and Kraft Foods Inc. aren’t simply unhealthy. They can hijack the brain in ways that resemble addictions to cocaine, nicotine and other drugs.
“The data is so overwhelming the field has to accept it,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “We are finding tremendous overlap between drugs in the brain and food in the brain.”"
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-11/fatty-foods-addi...
Not saying the science is done, but there's a strong possibility that burgers are addictive.
Surprisingly, Sweet Tea (otherwise known as would-you-like-some-water-with-your-sugar in the south) has about 15 grams less carbs in the large than a Coke. I think I might never order another coke again.
And like the other guy said - it's backed up by science too. The insane amounts of fat, salt, and sugar spike the reward processors in the brain WAY past what they're built for. They are hacking you.
Well fats are addictive. Not in the you will die from withdrawl like heroin or alcohol way, but in the way that gamblings and sex is.
They don't coerce anyone to eat their food. What a ridiculous hyperbole.
Or are you seriously going to argue that McDonalds has ads that are considerably more emotionally manipulative than other typical advertisers?
Yea well that's just your opinion man.
1) She uses a BlackBerry PlayBook in the video. :-D
2) This video is part of a much larger social marketing effort by McDonald's Canada.
http://yourquestions.mcdonalds.ca/
Personally, I think it's brilliant, and masterfully executed. Sounds like someone there "gets" social media.
Also, note carefully the details in this piece: it covers "food styling" done by "WATT" for "McDonalds Canada" and claims that that particular shoot used only the actual ingredients McDonalds uses in its retail chain.
From what little I know of the "food styling" business (not much, but I've met people who work in it), it would be an extraordinary claim that McDonalds adheres to that "only real store-scale ingredients used in promotional graphics" credo worldwide. But maybe they do?
There is a famous case of an ad for Martini where, because of the rules, it had to be the real product that the actors were drinking!
Which lead to a catch-22 after a few takes - the more mistakes they made, the more they had to drink and the more mistakes they made.....
Leonard Rossiter is a famous British actor but had a reputation for being difficult to work with and a real perfectionist.
Joan Collins said in an interview that he kept messing up the take after each drink and she wasn't sure if he was doing it deliberately - but they ended up very drunk at the end.
But there is a difference between just food in a photo-shoot where you can use anything and a shot of the actual product in an ad which must obey certain rules in most countries
If the food is the product being advertised, it must be real.
There's probably a really interesting product placement grey line where the advertiser can argue that placement of a beautiful, fake burger in a scene should not be regulated under the "must be real" guidelines.
1. Not all food photography is advertising. For example, food magazines: They're not actually selling what's on the cover. They're well within their rights that the covershoot consists entirely of wax models of tomatoes rather than real tomatoes[1]. The same would apply to the Food or Recipes sections in generic lifestyle magazines.
2. The things that are "not the food itself" is interpreted very broadly. As others have noted, you can use white glue for milk if you're hawking cereal. If you're selling tomatoes, you can probably still dip them in wax varnish to make them shine, and add "water" drops made of epoxy to sexy them up[2].
[1] That is to say, "real" wax models, not Roma tomatoes.
[2] I mean "sexy" literally. It's called "food porn" for a reason. The photographic techniques and cinematographic styles are apparently very similar.
This law came about in, hm, the 60s? after the first wave of outrage over things like ice cream in advertisements being made out of textured lard, or whatever.
So, showing a 3/4 pound hamburger in an ad for 99 cent cheeseburgers would be material, but using colored caulk instead of mustard probably wouldn't be.
"The food stylist’s magic tricks face regulation from the Federal Trade Commission and its truth in advertising laws. That Crisco-powdered sugar mix can substitute for ice cream if it’s representing a generic dessert on a menu, Allaben says, but not if it’s hawking a brand name like Ben & Jerry’s."
And here (http://www.cskern.com/blog/entryid/11):
"The truth is most of what you see in food photographs is real. FTC laws state that whatever you’re selling with a photo must be real in the image. To use a familiar example, if you’re selling corn flakes the flakes must be real. But then it gets interesting. You can use white glue instead of milk in your bowl of flakes because you’re not selling the milk, only the corn flakes."
So, the product being sold must be real as-it-is-sold (albeit much more carefully styled, generally). The incidentals can be embellished. A McD's quarter-pounder is a single product, and so presumably must be made with its actual ingredients in ads.
Also: McDonalds Canada specifically said, in this video, that they were not embellishing the incidentals; it was exactly the same buns, exactly the same pickles, just arranged differently.
And the bun, pickles etc would have to be real by law, is what I'm saying. They're part of a single McD's product being sold by the photo.
So I'm going a step further and seeing if anyone can use an advanced legal tool like Google or Wikipedia to find the place that says McDonalds must-absolutely-must use real pickles or exactly the real McNugget coating, no spraypaint allowed, in its food shoots.
I think we've already shot to shit the verity of these photos when we observe that they're browning the burgers on a panini press and then saying "this food is ugly because if it looked like the ad, it would taste like shit". Well, you can say the same thing about overcooked protein as you can about a can of shellac, can't you?
I tried that, of course, and didn't find a proper law reference in the amount of time I dedicated to the task. I'll have leave it up to you to satisfy your curiosity from here. Please do post if/when you find it!
'means of advertisement other than labeling, which is misleading in a material respect; and in determining whether an advertisement is misleading, there shall be taken into account (among other things) not only representations made or suggested by statement, word, design, device, sound, or any combination thereof, but also the extent to which the advertisement fails to reveal facts material in the light of such representations or material with respect to consequences which may result from the use of the commodity to which the advertisement relates under the conditions prescribed in said advertisement, or under such conditions as are customary or usual.
The net result of this basically means if your selling a burger, you must show a picture of a burger using the materials you use to make a burger. But, you don't need to use the same methods.
It took all of 2 minutes to find the case. You have to know where to look.
The case is not available digitally for free or as part of subscriptions to legal research databases to Lexis, Westlaw, etc. It is available digitally if you are willing to pay for individual access to the case; price varies depending on the LRD used.
Note that the FTC has not ever actually issued formal regulations on this topic. This is largely for administrative reasons: if the FTC published formal rules, it would be bound to those rules; with informal rules, it is better able to address ads which are deceptive but otherwise satisfy the letter of the law. (This flexibility is a good thing, otherwise the rules on food advertising alone could fill a small room.)
There are print copies available, but the case generally precedes the digitized archives available with subscriptions to legal research archives (i.e., Lexis/Westlaw). You are free to pay for access to the appropriate database if you actually need to read the case digitally.
In a nutshell, in Campbell, the company used marbles to stand-in for peas and other various vegetable ingredients. Someone complained that the ads were deceptive. The FTC pursued an enforcement action against the company. In its ruling, the FTC noted that a food product (and any ingredients) advertised must actually be the food product sold. Otherwise, the ad is deceptive.
The application to burger commercials: The advertised product must be an actual sample of the sold product. All of the ingredients in the sold product must be in the advertised product.
The ruling is not explicitly limited to the food products being advertised and sold, however it does not address any other ingredients except for those advertised and sold. Consequently, if a foodstuff is not part of the final sold product, the advertisement can use a stand-in. Consequently, the milk in cereal commercials can be glue (or paint), while the cereal in milk commercials can be plastic.
The photog gets to choose the best bun out of hundreds, the best tomatoes, greenest lettuce. In the end photograph, the bun will look perfect and fluffy, the tomato sparkles, and the meat seems fresher than a live cow. Plus they may or may not, but there are "tricks" to simulate things like fake steam coming out of food, spraying glicerin or corn syrup to make it look moist(looks like water droplets), or simply cold food photographs better. On top of all that, good lighting does wonders as well.
I grew up in rural Jamaica, where there was no fast food, but I came to the capital city (Kingston) twice per month, where we would always eat at KFC. So I'd never had a burger before (KFC dominates every fast food chain in Jamaica).
When I was maybe 12 or 13, we had a class trip to Kingston, and after the outing, we went to a McDonalds.
So I'm standing in the line, and looking at the ad suspended from the ceiling. I wondered "how in the world could someone eat something so big!" I decided to order it anyway. You only live once.
Imagine my disappointment when the tiny box came back with an even tinier burger. I felt cheated, almost to the point of anger.
Anecdotes aside, this is genius marketing by McDonald. No PR-speak, no cover-up, but rather: "Are the burgers in the ad different from the store? Sure!!! Come on in, let me show you everything. See, we do A, B, and C and that gives us D!" That deflates any possible anger and makes it look like they have nothing to hide.
She deserves a raise.
Oh, and you're perfectly right: "Pepsi, Blackberry and Burger King instead of Coke, iPhone and McDonalds."
Now to find lunch...
They respond to "why do your burgers look different in commercials?" by answering "here's the process of making a commercial burger."
That doesn't address the fact that a stylist cooked it on a panini grill for an hour looking the perfect brown, leading to a thicker-width burger which indeed makes their advertisements a lie.
It doesn't matter if they use the same ingredients or need to show their pickles and ketchup. They've created an entirely different product for the advertisement and will continue to sell a lesser product in place of it. The only honest answer to the original question is the obvious one: because their normal burgers look like crap.
Let's face it, the fact that this ad is getting a lot of talk will be a success, because very few people will watch through the whole video and many, many fewer people will actually keep the logical assertions straight in their head...but the 5-second sound byte is: "McDonald takes on critics who accuse them of food doctoring"...even if 95% of the video is boilerplate this-is-how-you-photograph-products.
I'll admit it, somewhere in my subconscious, McDonalds got an upvote, and I'll probably act on that in a future situation when I am hungry.
The patties are usually undercooked as well for the photo shoots, so the meat doesn't shrink as much.
...how is "the burger on the ad is designed to show what's in the burger, the one you eat is designed to be eaten" not an honest answer?
I don't know about you, but I buy a hamburger for its taste and satisfaction, not to stare at it.
That's the psychological button-pushing aspect of this video that's hard to duplicate in normal advertisements. In addition to the value of the realism in scenario itself, showing a Director of Marketing appear genuinely enthusiastic about the quality of the product is also a big win.
The rest of it is interesting, not really all that surprising, and undoubtedly simplified as much to fit into the desired time constraints as much as to present the issue in as positive a light as possible.
Another reason that explains why the burgers look amazing in the advertising is because the food stylist has access to where ingredients are placed and what ingredients he uses. In McDonald's stores they just use whatever ingredients they have on hand and if you've ever worked at McDonald's or know someone else who has or does, then you'd probably know a lot of their salads are frozen/refrigerated compared to a food stylist who would have access to the freshest ingredients that haven't been frozen.
You could quite clearly see the food stylist laying out several pieces of cheese on a plate, several pickles and carefully placing where the sauces went. The meat looks bigger because it was lightly seared in a pan and most likely not ingestible. Everyone knows meat shrinks when you cook it and you can see the stylist cooking the patty in a pan, and then holding it on a George Foreman looking grill, making sure it browned evenly.
The bottom line is: nothing ever looks the same as it does in an advertisement and the fact that people still complain and bring this up amazes me. We live in a society where nothing we see in magazines, TV, the Internet or newspapers is real most of the time.
Someone with the exact same measurements generally has the benefit of being able to try the different sizes on, photographers often don't unless working with a company rep on hand, or they've sent multiple sizes which often only happens at the higher end.
However, I find the practice misleading in catalogs and in-store displays. The expectation in catalogs is to present the wares the seller is advertising. Using clips and pins misrepresents the product.
I really appreciate transparency and clarity in exactly how a garment is cut. Some sellers accomplish this wonderfully. One such seller is Mr. Porter. On their online catalog, you can see that some garments do not fit perfectly on the model because that is simply how the garment naturally hangs without clips/pin/tailoring. They also give the model's measurements so that you can compare your sizes to the models and a size chart. This has been enough for me to accurately judge how a garment will fit me even without trying it on! (Example: http://www.mrporter.com/product/301852 , select "Size & Fit"). Another website that does this is Amazon's myhabit.com
I don't mind GQ using clips and pins. GQ is presenting what is possible. A store, on the other hand, should show what they are trying to sell, and I believe using clips misrepresents their wares by obscuring the exact nature of their wares: sizing, cut, how it hangs, what would have to be tailored, etc.
They're also more expensive.
(My wife saw the ones Dairy Queen used while she worked there. She says they look amazingly real, even up close)
Still taste as good as they look in the ads though.
Despite all the bad press, McDonalds is great (well I like them anyway).
On the other hand, also in Vienna, in winter I ordered a bagel and asked if they could toast it for me. The lady responded in a strong Russian accent "Das ist ein kalt produkt!" No amount of persuasion or rationalizing could get her to put the f'ing bagel in the f'ing toaster right behind her. ;-)
So it really became a no-brainer for me which to choose whenever I needed a fast meal and didn't want to make something. Chipotle isn't perfect (I've identified about 4 things they could do better, in my book) but they've come closer to perfect, in the fast food space, than any other business I've seen. I'm glad McDonald's is (hopefully) losing in the marketplace and on Wall Street, and Chipotle the opposite. It (should be) all about the customer and the end-user experience, and this should be reflected in revenue and stock price trends, in a fair system.
I've never expected their burgers to match their ads, but I do expect them to taste good, and not provide a disgusting dining room experience. Life's too short for otherwise.
Personally I think the fact that Chipotle produce the food in front of you also contributes to the sense that it’s fresher than other fast food alternatives.
Biggest issue with fast food is sort of linked to the "uglification for the sake of taste", but let's get one thing straight: fast food quality and taste is damn bad. So that excuse is out the window. I've tried everything on McD's menu including their newer 'bistro' or whatever sandwiches and all of them left me wondering WTF is wrong with this food.
The biggest offender of this is, and I truly mean it - Tim Hortons. Ever since about two years ago or so, their food became garbage. They too have the pretty moving adverts in-store on their LCDs, but I'll be damned if I buy another item from that chain.
Lesson learned: make and pack my own food as much as possible.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ide...
In the old days, I would simply just order what came out last from the oven. Because hot anything out of the oven is awesome. When it was a croissant, it is a jackpot.
Personally, I think people don't realize the extent of how "factory" like a lot of corporate chains are. Like how Montana's doesn't actually "cook" your vegetables, they just microwave a frozen pack and dump it on a plate. And this is a sit-down restaurant with waitresses and cooks.
My solution? I eat-in and plan out.
I don't know how is it in smaller cities, but I would guess an American should know what's a good burger and what's complete rubbish.
DOLLAR MENU
I also experienced some great burgers in New York, ones with truffles and Kobe meat. They were already pretty expensive, but also tasted amazing.
I work with several people who go to McDonald's three days a week. They refuse to try anything different even when they definitely have the time (fixed lunch hour) and money ($1 extra?) and encouragement (happy coworkers) to shop around.
When you're far from home, short on time/money, and looking for something familiar, then sure, I get it. But sometimes, people are just lazy. Everybody certainly has their reasons. Those reasons aren't always good.
Food in commercials is treated like an actor. It is styled, staged, and post-produced to show it at its best. Food stylists are just as talented as traditional cosmetic artists, but few people seem to know they exist. It was good to see McDonald's revealing a little of their work here.
This ad reminds me of the toy. Fast food is bad. I am not interested in the question to start with, so I won't bother with the given answer. thank you very much.
That said, sadly this is a good ad campaign, because sadly most of us most of the time are attracted to colorful toys.
I just ate a Whopper. It was delicious. I eat in moderation, have an active life, and there is nothing particularly insidious or evil about this food.
Some people just have to have their cause.
Search for "Domino's Pulling the Cheese".
Cheat-ception!
You don't have permission to access /article/adages/video-burger-ad/235508/ on this server.
Apache Server at adage.com Port 80"
Apparently goes for the whole site. :(
They lie.
There are print copies available, but the case generally precedes the digitized archives available freely or with subscriptions to legal research archives (i.e., Lexis/Westlaw). You can pay for individual case access if you actually need to read the case digitally. It is not cheap.
She made that really clear, they use the same ingredients in both burgers. The only difference is appearance not taste.
I suppose it falls under the "fake it till you make it" category of business practices.
It's amusing to note that these comments generally come from people with new accounts. It's so prevalent, in fact, that the guidelines specifically state "If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)".
However when she says 'we use the exact same ingredients they use in the store' that's a blatant lie. For one thing all McDonald's stores use slightly different ingredients (whatever can be bought at best market prices) and they definitely could never produce a cosmetically perfect burger using stock ingredients.
In addition, she doesn't tell you about all the non-food items that are used to make this look so good - hairspray for gloss, polymerized rubber for filling, etc.
I will add, gratuitously, the money McD's is paying looks good on her.