Public Interest Group Holds Off On Lawsuit Against Soft Drink Makers
From an article in AdAge (free registration required, or use bugmenot):
A consumer group that has been weighing a lawsuit that charges the soft-drink industry with unfairly or deceptively marketing harmful products to children today said it is in negotiations with marketers and will hold off on the suit.
I once heard Marion Nestle say, at a book signing for Food Politics, that food companies are worried about lawsuits related to American obesity. They know they’re marketing unhealthy products, and many of them have firsthand experience with the lawsuits that hit the tobacco companies, who went on to purchase companies like Kraft. So you can imagine the panic when soft drink companies heard about the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s pending lawsuit about their unfair and deceptive marketing practices.
It sends a chill down my spine to think of a consumer advocacy group meeting with marketing executives from a company they’re about to sue. Maybe CSPI is making sure it has its facts straight. Maybe it’s meeting with the companies as a courtesy, or to discuss ways the soft drink manufacturers can rectify the situation in a positive way. I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt: Another article on CSPI’s site trumpets, “The Institute of Medicine’s report on food marketing to children is a milestone that marks the beginning of the end of junk-food marketing to kids.” But if CSPI changes its tactics at all because of these meetings, I suspect consumers and children will be the worse for it.
Worried about how soft drink manufacturers advertise to children? Write CSPI and urge them to bring the companies to court.
What they’re doing is blackmailing the softdrink industry. “Pay up or we’ll make you pay.” They’re probably threatening the industry with a lawsuit unless they make some concessions. Essentially, it’s plea bargain negotiations.
Of course, they want to play that game because it’s expensive to sue an industry with deep pockets. If they bring them to court, they might just lose.
But then I also don’t assume, as you did that they have “unfair and deceptive marketing practices.”