Soft drink firm forced to pay out $13million because drink ‘doesn’t really give you wings’

9 years ago | Posted in: Business | 782 Views

If you drank red bull in the last 12 years, and you didn’t automatically grow wings, then you’ll be entitled to a small piece of a hefty settlement the company has agreed to pay for false advertising. But thanks to all the press the cash payouts have received, the check maybe much smaller than originally anticipated.

Energy drink Red Bull GmbH settled two class-action lawsuits this week, agreeing to pay $13million because their famous slogan ‘Red Bull gives you wings’ isn’t true.
It was originally reported that anyone who bought a drink from January 1, 2002 to October 3, 2014 would be eligible to receive either a $10 cash payment of $15 in Red Bull product -regardless of whether there was a receipt for proof. There’s now speculation that the cash payouts will be much less since an influx of people are making claims on the energy drink’ssettlement website. According to the terms of the lawsuit, the company agreed to pay customers up to $13million, not $10 in cash to anyone who filed a claim by the deadline. It’s unclear whether the payouts will be diluted if more than $1.3million ask for cash payouts, or if the company will stop accepting claims after a quota has been reached.

Interest in the program appears to be high since the website crashed Wednesday night, and has been going in and out of service all day. A spokesman for the company would not clarify whether the cash pool would be diluted with an influx of claimants.

The spokesman said details of how the settlement would be dispersed can be found on the settlement website. The last time the website was up and running, these parts of the page could still not be viewed.

The offer only applies to customers in the U.S. In one of the lawsuits, a consumer who had been drinking the product for years wrote that they had experienced no increase in performance, concentration of reaction speed. ‘Such deceptive conduct and practices mean that [Red Bull’s] advertising and marketing is not just “puffery,” but is instead deceptive and fraudulent and is therefore actionable,’ the suit says.

‘Even though there is a lack of genuine scientific support for a claim that Red Bull branded energy drinks provide any more benefit to a consumer than a cup of coffee, the Red Bull defendants persistently and pervasively market their product as a superior source of “energy” worthy of a premium price over a cup of coffee or other sources of caffeine,’ the suit says Red Bull has agreed to change their marketing campaign, but insists their advertising was never misleading to begin with… see more

source: Dailymail UK

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