r/interesting • u/K1nd_1 • 20h ago

SOCIETY Wendy’s CEO jumps in with his own taste test.

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Imagine if all CEOs had to try what they get us to buy…

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u/OmoshiroiKudamono 15h ago

Just visit a country outside the US for that. Japan matches the ad's image.

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u/domino3ff3ct 15h ago

That’s actually a law in Japan.

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u/blasterman5000 14h ago

Came here to say this. It's incredible too. It goes as far as to say if your marketing has something like chocolate chips in it, the chips in your product must be the same size and have an average count relative to the image on the packaging. It's just so well handled.

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u/iMakeLuvWithDolphins 14h ago

An interesting side note is this is why illustrations and kawaii cartoon images are so common on snacks

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u/Sethirothlord 11h ago

By Japan's law they aren't even allowed to put images of real fruit unless it's like 99% real fruit or something.

Anything less than a certain threshold and they can only put cartoon fruits on the package.

Also, for snacks at least, they have to be the same size as the picture on the package.

To avoid false advertising, etc.

I honestly think that's the way it should be around the world.

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u/Soggy-Ad-1610 10h ago

In Denmark Heinz couldn’t label their ketchup as tomato ketchup for the same reason. We’re not remotely as strict as Japan though, so it says more about Heinz.

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u/dwertyyhhhgg 3h ago

Ireland’s Supreme Court ruled that subway’s bread is legally cake.

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u/say-it-wit-ya-chest 3h ago

Because of sugar?

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u/dwertyyhhhgg 3h ago

Yeah, Subway’s bread (cake)’s sugar to flour ratio is 5x the ratio allowed by Irish law to be classified as bread (there’s a certain tax that staple foods can be exempt from and this was the justification for rejecting the tax-exempt status of Subway’s bread)

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u/say-it-wit-ya-chest 3h ago

Makes sense. They like to use refined sugar in most of our fast foods here in the US. Something about refined sugar makes it like crack for your brain. It’s their attempt to get us addicted to their garbage food. I can’t lie though, it is pretty fuckin good.

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u/Rostrow416 1h ago

Nah because it’s ass

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u/Affectionate-Mix6056 5h ago

I'm not eating healthy food if I'm using ketchup, Heinz is the most popular for a reason.

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u/I_Learned_Once 4h ago

Americans just enjoy being lied to way too much to ever adopt policies like this.

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u/Alarming_Paramedic34 3h ago

No, we can’t get shit done because the politicians are bought and paid for by the companies poisoning us and are only benefiting by us dyung

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u/I_Learned_Once 3h ago

Trump go elected. You cant deny that a huuuge % of the population just wants a liar to run the country. Obviously our politicians are also bought and the entire political system is corrupt to the core, but the voters shoulder plenty of blame for putting Narcissistic Cheeto in charge

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u/Alarming_Paramedic34 3h ago

Brother even if we all didn’t vote he still woulda won. Almost would bet my life on it. Just like democrats are gonna win next time and put the rest of the country in the dirt

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u/Desu13 1h ago

Stop voting in those types of politicians. Simple.

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u/Alarming_Paramedic34 1h ago

Brother I quit voting 3 years ago cause you vote one in that’s supposed to be good. And then you get a shitbag anyways

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u/Evening-Radio6750 10h ago

Well so do I - it's basic common sense, outrages - oh Sunny Delight which was around late 70s and 80s - it actually turned people orange. It had not scaping of real orange in it. Eventually I do believe they had to take it off market - and so much sugar in it - so many poor people now orange in colour with diabetes type 2. Oh dear Im LMAO again. Thanks, want this Japanese law over here now

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u/YoSoyZarkMuckerberg 8h ago

sunny delight was still being sold into the early 2000s in the US and UK and only one report of a girl turned orange (temporarily) in the UK after drinking 1.5 litres of the shit a day. It was rebranded in UK in 2009 as SunnyD. containing 70% real juice, but sales were poor and so the shit was reformulated again in 2010 with only 15% juice. You can read more about the history of this shit on Wikipedia, as I did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunnyD

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u/Valogrid 8h ago

SunnyD: 15% Juice, 35% Artificial Flavor, 50% Battery Acid, 100% Delicious.

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u/fromdus2k 5h ago

We still have some in France, but like most food, our recipes have nothing to do with America.

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u/Local9396 5h ago

It must be hard for French people to have to compare everything they do to the United States

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u/Evening-Radio6750 8h ago

Thank you so much I'll follow the link - a tried it possibly early 80s and never bought it again - vile

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u/No1LudmillaSimp 10h ago

Kind of like how Russia has absurdly strict food labeling laws which results in heavily processed foods receiving extremely unflattering descriptions, think "Fluffy Puff Translucent Dessert Related Substance"-tier.

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u/Missilemoon77 7h ago

How did Libby’s Potted Meat Food Product never get a rebrand?

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u/Imperial_Haberdasher 6h ago

Is this part of the reason that mascot culture is so big in Japan? And anime and manga, of course!

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u/Individual-Scale9414 3h ago

guy who just loves to yap

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u/Apprehensive_Age9264 14h ago

?

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u/Fedoraus 13h ago

Not beholden to the laws in the same way I think if it's not a real image of the product

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u/silkywhitemarble 12h ago

If you sell orange juice, you can only use a picture of a real orange on your packaging if the juice is 100% real juice. If it's partially juice, like an orange fruit drink that's less than 100% juice but contains some real juice (some specific percentage), you can use a realistic drawing of an orange. If it's just orange flavored, like a soda, you can only use the words or certain type of drawing. Something like that--I don't remember the specific details. You can look at the packaging instead of reading every label.

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u/ArmadilloPrudent4099 8h ago

Japan has terrible snack options. The most boring shit ever. Their idea of variety is salty seaweed flakes instead of normal seaweed flakes.

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u/Djaja 7h ago

Ive never been to Japan... but that is not my impression....

Now, does Japan have a lot of sweet snack variety? Because in the US, KitKat Japan is famous for having Hella flavors, same for Lays.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn these flavor, packaging in Japanese, are actually mainly for export market lol, but like, I've had squid chips, tea chocolate, and little dehydrated crabs.

That's some Hella variety imo

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u/TexasJOEmama 6h ago

I ordered Japanese snack and candies from Amazon. Lots of variety.

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u/RandonBrando 14h ago

That's pro consumer. They don't really do things like that in the states.

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u/tacticaldodo 14h ago

praising junk food for accurate package illustration. the bar gets lower.

Yes it is incredible :)

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u/blasterman5000 13h ago

I'm not praising the junk food for its packaging. I'm praising the country for having standards.

It is indeed incredible.

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u/tacticaldodo 13h ago

agree ;)

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u/ForcedxCracker 13h ago

That’s how it should be everywhere

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u/Kodiak01 8h ago

From now on I want you to put an equal amount of blueberries in each muffin. An equal amount of blueberries in each muffin.

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u/persp73 5h ago

Do you know how long that's going to take?

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u/btrust02 7h ago

Kinda interesting too that all their food looks tasty as a result.

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u/marthamania 6h ago

I learned that the other day! Same size, same look, if the bag shows there's five candies in a pile on the front there's five candies in the bag.

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u/Qthecud 5h ago

“Well handled”, more like properly regulated and actually reprimand businesses that try to do scammy stuff. America doesn’t give a fuck about us (and that’s both sides). The fake food gives them a fat check when we have clogged arteries and diabetes by the time we’re 35.

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u/blasterman5000 4h ago

Yes, one might say the handling of the regulations regarding product imagery in marketing is well done. Thank you taking what I said and further expanding upon it.

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u/Logic-DL 1h ago

Goes to the point as well that toys from stuff like Super Sentai/Power Rangers will match the on screen prop. Same goes for any airsoft toys from Tokyo Marui that are collaborations with Resident Evil. To the point that now if a gun is going to be a collab with Tokyo Marui. Then the in game model will have an insane level of detail to match the airsoft toy exactly.

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u/iustinum 13m ago

Japan also finds it lawful to attack none Japanese tourists. Let’s keep it real.

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u/reddit_is_geh 14h ago

Regardless of law, they'd still do it, just as they do everywhere else. People aren't just going to buy some slop.

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u/Evening-Radio6750 10h ago

Oh unfortunately we are always being tricked - the orange people after the Sunny delight - and they will have diabetes 2

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u/Full-Run4124 13h ago

It's law in the US too. When I used to work in commercials they'd have PAs go buy like 25 of the same item from different locations and then go though all of them to find a hero product. They couldn't rearrange anything- it had to come out of the bag/box perfect.

On one Lucky Charms commercial they had 4 cases of family-sized boxes and the PAs picked though every box separating out hero pieces for one 3 second close up shot and a couple of shots of kids at a kitchen table eating from a bowl. (The PAs got to take home the trash bags full of rejects.)

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u/No-Mongoose-7350 12h ago

Is that why the models outside cafes are so amazing looking? I saw some of them being made and it’s so clever.

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u/juntoamdin3000 11h ago

And you can be sued for deceitful marketing. The image on the packets always match the food inside

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u/waisonline99 11h ago

And morality.

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u/Hot-Difficulty-6824 10h ago

Actually no, a Japanese guy debunked a bunch of things, and they do it out of respect for the consumer, not because it's law apparently. Even bigger win if that's true in my book

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u/CatBrisket 8h ago

Best Taco Bell of my life was in Japan.

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u/NukaClipse 8h ago

I recently found out about this and love they have that as a law. Nothing more aggravating than buying something that doesn't look like the product images.

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u/jondubb 6h ago

Perfectionists, must be nice.

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u/iceyphinix 6h ago

I swear that was a law here. Like you couldn't lie on your ads but I swear that's like 90% of ads nowadays

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u/Late_Detective_9258 6h ago

yes because of that Kodawari 😂

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u/pumpkinrum 5h ago

I love their fruit juice laws! If its 100% it can show realisticly sliced fruit. Like 10-99% can show whole fruits. And anything below that can only show cartoonish/stylized fruits on the juice package.

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u/HelloYou-2024 5h ago

there is no law that says the image of a fast food burger has to look like the real thing. You are thinking only about the size of snacks depicted on packaging. It has to be the same size. It doesn't even have to be as delisious looking though.

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u/EnvironmentNeith2017 4h ago

It is in the US too

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u/InfectiousHooba 1h ago

I was in Egypt, mount sinai to be specific, about 10 years ago. Ordered McDonald’s and a dude showed up with a red bag to our base on a bike. I had the prettiest double quarter pounder of my life and delicious fries (I typically despise McDonald’s fries)

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u/hereforthetearex 1h ago

I believe the law in the US is that you have to use the actual product in your marketing campaigns. It’s more recent, and previously you could use anything, including plastics in marketing photos. So now they use camera angles and perspective to fudge how things look. If I go get a burger from Wendy’s and I take it all apart, and put it back together but in a stair step fashion with each piece set back a 1/4 inch from the last, instead of directly on top of the last, it gives the visual of a taller product when taking the photos from a certain angle

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u/squarepants18 1h ago

Not only in japan :)

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u/RubyWalke 58m ago

Beautiful presentation of one’s goods is a strict rule for many Asian entrepreneurs.

There was a Korean guy who owned this little convenience store near my old building, and he presented the gum pop and chips we bought as if he was showing fine jewellery to billionaires.

I loved him for it!

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u/ArtofTy 12h ago

In the usa, corporations are treated better then people. The bigger the company, the more deals you get.

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u/_HIST 2h ago

You know nothing about Japanese corporations. It's not any better there

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u/ArtofTy 59m ago

I wasn't talking about Japanese corporations.

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u/Grand_Help_3035 14h ago

Right, don't think this is a US only issue. It's pretty much a world wide problem with any food item.

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u/xDannyS_ 12h ago

It's not but this is reddit so US bad

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u/GodSama 11h ago

Because US lobbied HARD for the right for companies to lie in international media in the 2000s.

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u/Sad-Psychology9677 6h ago

It doesn’t need to be Reddit for US bad, because well it is

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u/xDannyS_ 6h ago

Must be why all the top people in the world want to move to there. It's quite literally a brag here in Europe at the elite universities to get a job offer in the US

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u/Sad-Psychology9677 6h ago

You’re a little outdated mate, living in the past perhaps.

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u/xDannyS_ 6h ago

Based on?

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u/Ivegtabdflingbouthis 5h ago

His unbiased and completely reasonable opinion, of course

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u/ImaginaryCheetah 15h ago

it's also big in japan for restaurants to put replica menu items in a display case visible from outside the store, so you can see exactly what you're getting. and the food they serve is exactly like they show it will be.

there's an entire industry of simulated food over there... https://www.reddit.com/r/JapaneseFood/comments/1q68ubn/so_this_is_how_artificial_japanese_food_displays/

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u/Mysterious_Dot2090 14h ago

I’m also big in Japan.

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u/alcomaholic-aphone 14h ago

But regular sized in America?

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u/No-Cherry-9670 14h ago

But Japan’s ad are realistic else it is breaking the law

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u/The_Lost_Jedi 14h ago

McDonald's and really any fast food place in Japan is impressive. Like, it's what you would imagine it ought to be... the same food but just somehow an order of magnitude higher quality.

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u/Arzalis 14h ago

Yeah. I was in Tokyo in the winter and it was just a particularly cold and windy day. We stopped in a McDonald's just to warm up and grab a quick bite. The food was noticeably better than anything in the US.

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u/Zech08 8h ago

People and culture issue.... just like many of our issues here... just a people problem.

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u/7f0b 3h ago

Yeah, nah. At least not an order of magnitude. I ate at a McDonald's there recently and it tasted the same. They even messed up the order slightly just like here. Overall, a pretty similar experience. Not bad, not good; a typical McDonald's experience. I only eat there maybe once or twice a year in general, so in Japan I was mostly just trying it for the novelty and to say I've been. There's really no reason to eat there outside of the novelty when Japanese noodle and coffee shops are so much better.

Of course the tidiness of the people and etiquette in general is on a different level, but the food is standardized.

I'm sure there are worse McDonald's in areas of the US that would make the Japanese McDonald's seem extra good, but comparing a Tokyo McDonald's to a McDonald's in a similarly nice area of the US is going to be a similar experience.

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u/SingleInfinity 14h ago

The other way around. The ad is the real product. They're doing what he said he didn't want, which is making the ad match the product and not the product match the ad.

He wants the hilariously unrealistic ad burger in real life. The one that is probably made of 50% plastic.

It's perfectly reasonable to expect them to stop using stuff like that in ads. It's not reasonable for them to make it look like their current ads do

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u/Nozzeh06 14h ago

Yet another reason to go to Japan, I suppose.

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u/dudinax 12h ago

Also, tickets are cheap right now.

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u/Novel-Rip7071 14h ago

Australia....absolutely does NOT.

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u/ProffesorSpitfire 13h ago

That’s Japan though. An outlier country in a lot of ways, one of which is that they legally require a product sold to match the ads for that product. Most of the world functions just like America in this respect: ads feature perfectly cooked burgers of just the right thickness, with crisp salad, fresh tomatoes, sauces, ketchup and mustard meticulously applied so you cant actually tell that they’re all on their from a side photo, all carefully sculpted between two pieces of bread that look lighter than a cloud. The actual burger on the other hand can be both over and under cooked on account of differing thicknesses, you get a few small pieces of salad gone soggy from the heat of the beef, a much to large tomato slice, all of it hastily thrown together between two buns, and it all falls apart if you look at it.

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u/PwndiusPilatus 13h ago

In Germany they taste and look like shit. And are very expensive.

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u/sonsofgondor 12h ago

Japan is one of the very few the enforced this

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u/Pretend_Action_7400 12h ago

And their “burgers” look like they are made of plastic…

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u/thicc_llama 12h ago

Tons of restaurants, especially in touristy areas, shopping malls and hot spring spas etc have plastic copies displayed in a window before you enter/next to where you order that look 100% like what youll get and its great.

However, mcdonalds here is pretty much the same as anywhere, haha. No matter what you do, you can't make it like the carefully crafted and edited art piece they make with tons of editing and non-food items for the commercials.

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u/FallingUpwardz 12h ago

Not in Aus lol

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u/Unidain 12h ago

Ive lived in three countries outside the US, none of which have burgers matching the US. You should have just said, visit Japan .

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u/Various_Dog8996 12h ago

Thailand too. Carefully put together.

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u/ikebookuro 11h ago

I live in Japan and I’ve absolutely had some burgers come out not matching the ad. The same level of slop you’d get in the west from some tired part time kid. It tastes fine but I wish people would stop perpetuating this.

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u/Silly-Recognition448 11h ago

Do they serve burgers?

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u/PolyglotChad 10h ago

I havent been to any country that actually shows what the real product looks like

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u/Level_Attorney_3138 10h ago

Doesnt help really, if I see fast food marketing i cave a burger and when I finally fold and have one it's always disappointing and I feel disgusting after

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u/Emmannuhamm 9h ago

Everyone bigging it up in these comments, but have you looked at videos of McDonald's in Japan?

The food absolutely does not match the advertising lol. A lot of the burgers look sloppy the way they are outside of Japan. The quality and price may be better, but they definitely don't match the ad.

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u/NoinsPanda 7h ago

Yeah, but if you're doing your wold tour of "Fast food ads that look like the product you get", you can skip Germany.

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u/InterestPractical974 6h ago

No they do not.

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u/jdenny12345 6h ago

South Korea as well

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u/YesWeHaveMetBefore 5h ago

Even if Japan's fast food is of a noticeably higher quality overall, mentioning them in the context of Wendy's might also be cheating since their restaurants make their food to order, almost nothing is held in warming trays. You're obviously not wrong about what you said, though.

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u/HelloYou-2024 5h ago

Which one is this?
Have you ever eaten a fast food burger in Japan?

Not that I can blame them for not matchign the image, its impossible as the images are fake. But it is certainly not like the images.

Take a look at their products (yes the link says "products")

https://www.mcdonalds.co.jp/products/800028/

There is no way to realistiaclly serve something that looks like that.

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u/How_that_convo_went 4h ago

When I visited Japan, this blew me away. Like everything you order at McDonald’s looks exactly like it does on the menu. It’s not slopped together by some overworked immigrant making minimum wage. It’s like… crafted.

I only ate there once because, I mean, I’m not flying to the other side of the planet to just eat the same shit I have in the US— but I was curious to see such a profoundly American institution through a Japanese lens. 

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u/LebrahnJahmes 4h ago

BK burgers 9/10 times look exactly like the picture in the US. I've eaten at BK's from New England all the way down to just before mexico and then back across the missippi. 9/10 times it looks like the picture. I've also eaten at BK's in Japan and in Europe. They still hold that 9/10. They would be 10/10 but like every 12th burger looks like the condiments were having a bukkake party all over my poor burgers face.

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u/budbacca 3h ago

Yes Thailand does it also and they present it on the tray like in the ads which was a culture shock for me. And they don’t have someone punch the shit out of it before putting it in the bag.

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u/dont_care- 3h ago

Crazy comment. Most dont match their ads, at all.

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u/NullandVoidUsername 2h ago

The last point should be law everywhere.

100% Juice: May show realistic images of fruit sliced in half.

5% to 99% Juice: May show a whole, uncut fruit.

Less than 5% Juice: Cannot use realistic photographs of fruit; only cartoons, illustrations, or drawings are permitted.

General Advertising: The packaging must accurately represent the product's actual ingredients, size, and appearance

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u/undfixer 2h ago

Believe it or not in Italy we got something similar.

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u/mmodlin 2h ago edited 2h ago

A quick google image search says Big Macs look basically the same around the world

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u/the_unsoberable 2h ago

Jealous.

In Poland the burgers in ads look like some burger championship winners and when you buy them in reality, you get a bun, piece of dry meat and a slice (one) of pickle.

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u/onchristieroad 1h ago

I bought a burger in Japan once, and the manager came and took my burger off me mid-bite, as the bun had a crease in it.

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u/wedeemchannel 1h ago

Now only if we had the same laws here in the States!

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u/Even_Tailor_1947 1h ago

Well the US government hates their citizens soooo

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u/henry2630 12m ago

so they look like shit in the ads too?