Here’s the scenario:

Back in 2005, a French man living in Massachusetts wrote in complaining about Subway Restaurant’s advertisement of their new chicken cordon bleu sandwich.  A poster in a Subway Restaurant window read “Chicken and France… Somehow it just goes together.” The poster also featured a chicken dressed in what appeared to be a French military uniform. He found the poster to be disturbing because to him it was clearly racist, inflammatory, and insensitive. The man said, “They’re looking to sell a few sandwiches on the basis of the current anti-French sentiment?” He acknowledged that there are a lot of French people in the United States and that Subway Restaurant, as an international franchise, has shops in France and Quebec, so he had a hard time imagining this poster in restaurant windows there. He asked: “Are they violating any laws?”

Our take*:

Subway Restaurant exercised its usage of the First Amendment and free speech when creating and launching the cordon bleu campaign. Although the advertisement may have offended some consumers, there’s no inherent proof indicating that they intentionally sought to offend French people.

I read that Subway Restaurant did pull the cordon bleu advertisement campaign and apologized because they didn’t intend to offend anyone. Even though some people, including our friend that wrote in, took immediate offense to the advertisement, we can’t prove that Subway intended to create an inflammatory advertisement. In fact, Subway Restaurant responded saying that their “intention [was] to show to customers that fine French cuisine and our chicken sandwiches are a complimentary pairing,” which can be seen as flattering.

Subway Restaurant’s choice to cancel to the cordon bleu campaign actually emphasizes the economic rule that anything done in poor taste may hurt the business. Subway Restaurant ultimately made a business decision to pull the ads, which doesn’t imply an admission to violating the First Amendment.

All in all, it is unfortunate that a chicken dressed in a French military uniform was flagged as such a major offense. We hope Subway Restaurant learned a lesson about cultural sensitivity.

Posted by Adrienne on October 7, 2009 at 1:00 pm.

* Our in house attorneys helped us formulate this opinion. Although this is advice from lawyer(s), this is not legal advice. Always consult a lawyer for legal matters.

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