CHICAGO, July 23 (UPI) -- Frito-Lay has been ordered to stop a Chicago ad campaign championing its potato chips, a project a federal judge said was "motivated by greed."
The company was directed to remove a billboard and stop all other "false and misleading advertising" of claims that Chicagoans prefer Lay's snacks over Jays, the Chicago Sun-Times said Friday.
U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan, calling the campaign "clearly derogatory," halted it with an emergency temporary restraining order. The judge said Lay's did not back up its billboard claim that "Chicago prefers the taste of Lay's over Jays."
"I find Lay's misleading advertisement in identifying Jays potato chips as unflavored not only unsavory but totally tasteless," Der-Yeghiayan added,
He said such advertising could irreparably damage Chicago-based Jays Food Inc.
The billboard ad and radio ads were based on tests conducted late last year in Joliet, Niles and Elgin, Lay's spokesman Charles Nicolas said.
