Today, Reuters reports: “Taco Bell Corp. has urged a court to throw out an ‘enormously disparaging’ lawsuit that claims its “seasoned beef” taco and burrito filling has too little beef to be labeled as such.”
I admit I find Taco Bell’s actions in this drama awfully amusing.
In recent ads and on YouTube, Taco Bell’s President, Greg Creed (also CEO and Chief Concept Officer), has insisted on the virtue of his company’s products. In his charming Australian accent, Creed maintains that the filling in question is 88% beef! Not 35%, as alleged in the lawsuit.
(Full disclosure: Greg Creed and I clashed personally over ethical issues many years ago when he was still at Lever Brothers, so I may not be entirely objective on the subject of his integrity.)
With full-page newspaper ads and a $3 million ad campaign, Taco Bell has come out swinging. But it’s an interesting question: should Taco Bell stand and fight, or let it blow over?
Left-brain-wise, it’s logical to fight fact with fact: if the filling is indeed 88% beef, let the labs duke it out on data, and may the best data win. And certainly if the lawsuit is frivolous, cruising for a settlement to make them go away, they should be called on it. Left-brain circuitry, primed for control, dominance, details, analysis, and hierarchy screams to trounce the pipsqueaks who brought the suit.
A right-brain view is more holistic, more likely to acknowledge that Taco Bell is seen as cheap belly filler and/or guilty pleasure, even by its greatest fans. Would anyone really be shocked to learn that its “seasoned beef” (what the company’s own suppliers call “taco meat filling”) is a little low on beef?
From a right-brain perspective, focused on big-picture, simultaneous, emotion-rich, receptive processing, continued public attention to Taco Bell’s ingredients and processes will do more harm than good. We may fully accept mystery meat in our fast food, but would rather not know the particulars. Reminders of other TBell scandals within recent memory (the 2006 e coli scare, and 2007 rat videos in NYC), won’t help either, and they’re sure to surface with continued media attention.
By aggressively combating the where’s-the-beef lawsuit with typical corporate pomposity, Taco Bell has made itself ripe for a spotlight it can’t control, as captured brilliantly by Steven Colbert.
Taco Bell generated $6.7 billion in revenue in 2009 (QSR Magazine), and Greg Creed enjoyed a total compensation of $3.36 million that year (Forbes). It wouldn’t be a half-brained idea to take the money and run.
