It’s Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer and the livin’ is supposed to be easy – sandy beaches, shady hammocks, and cookouts filled with grillin’ goodies, including lots of hotdogs.  Unfortunately, the two biggest hot dog-makers are headed to court for a dog fight.

Hotdogs make you feel like a kid again.

Sara Lee, the maker of Ball Park franks, filed suit earlier this week against Oscar Mayer hot dogs, over an advertisement Sara Lee says is false and misleading.  Apparently, the offending ad claims national test results found Oscar Mayer® Jumbo Beef Franks were preferred over the Ball Park® brand.  Yup, they got dog gone mad and sued.

As of this writing, the claims are featured on the Oscar Mayer website.  It will be interesting to see how long this link stays active.   Currently is says Oscar Mayer Jumbo Beef Franks beat Ball Park^® and Hebrew National^® in a national taste test.¹  The footnote said “as compared to the leading beef franks of Ball Park® and Hebrew National® brands.”  See if it changes. 

Early news reports indicate the folks at Oscar Mayer hadn’t seen the compliant yet and therefore had no comment.  so, it may be too soon to tell.

Regardless of who “wins,”one thing is clear.  Aggressive marketing campaigns in highly competitive markets will draw fire from competitors and get you dragged into court.  “Winning” still requires digging deep into your pocket to pay the cost of defense.  It’s not free.

Tags: ball park franks, hotdog, oscar mayer, sara lee

This entry was posted on Monday, May 25th, 2009 at 11:30 am and is filed under Business Blind Spots, Costs, Decision Making. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.