So, I went to some fast food places (I won’t say “restaurants,” just “places”), and picked up burgers and tacos, so I could compare them with the ads (I love little ads vs. reality projects like this).
I brought the fast “food” home (different stuff over three nights), tossed it into my photography studio, and did some ad-style shoots (with pictures of the official food ads on my computer next to me, so I could match the lighting and angles of their advertising campaigns). These big companies always use some food photography tricks or other to make their food look more appealing. I’ve heard there’s even a professional food stylist to dress up their buns and fillings.
The resulting interesting photos of my little project were unsurprising… which shouldn’t be really unexpected.
(A guest post by Dario D.)
Don’t ask me how this kind of misleading advertising is legal. It seems that the law – at least in the US – is sometimes designed to please the God of Technicality (who I imagine as a big, super-angry robot, who demands absolute conformity to rules and formulas), while blatantly insulting man’s ability to perceive and judge. Laws for food advertisements should take into account things like the “innards-to-bun ratio” (in other words, if the ads show 70% innards, 30% buns, the real thing can’t be 10% innards, 90% buns), or, better yet, whether or not something is an ordinary group of people should determine false advertising.
In all cases, I gave the junk foods as fair a chance as absolutely possible, though I didn’t take the time to buy multiples of anything except the tacos (whether that would’ve been to choose the BEST stuff I could find, or pick out an average). …though, you know, that Whopper really is an epic fail. I want to leave it, just so that the Burger King people can enjoy a little, what, check on expectations vs. reality? If anything, hopefully this collection of pics will help you to stop eating unhealthy processed foods and save your money for something better.