Burger King Whoppers Are Too Small

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Burger King Whoppers Are Too Small

© Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

Burger King has spent so many years in the shadow of McDonald’s that it is a surprise it exists at all. It certainly will have trouble increasing its sales if the food it makes does not match what is advertised about that food. According to Reuters, which often catches these absurd stories, Burger King has been sued because its Whopper sandwich is too small. The suit spells the charge out in detail. (Here is the most popular fast-food chain in each state.)
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The problem Burger King has is that the suit is a class action one. It cannot hide from one individual. The claim starts with the pictures of Whoppers in its stores. These pictures show Whoppers that “overflow over the bun.” The ones served are allegedly smaller. The pictures make the Whopper seem 35% larger than it is, according to the allegation.
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Burger King’s headquarters has a powerful counter. Its burgers do not have to be as large as the ones in the picture. In his infinite wisdom, U.S. District Judge Roy Altman ruled that a jury will “tell us what reasonable people think.”

McDonald’s size has not allowed it to ward off similar claims. It faces one in Brooklyn, along with Wendy’s.
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Fast-food chains face an odd kind of liability. Few other industries have the problem of how a product compares to an illustration. It has not happened in the car industry. iPhone pictures are rarely seen as different from real iPhones. American Express cards may be smaller than they are in advertisements. However, the real ones function better than those in the pictures.
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Burger King may lose the suit. It will have to make the Whoppers in its photos smaller. It is too soon to tell if that will eat into sales.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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