A turning point in the campaign to get the California menu-labeling bill (SB 1420) passed into legislation (and secure gubernatorial approval) was the release of a YouTube video that used irreverent humor to fortify its stance against the opposition, in this case, the Restaurant Association in California.
As the association developed an alternative plan to the bill, which would require every restaurant in California to have brochures detailing in complex language the menu’s nutritional and caloric content, Brown-Miller Communications developed an entertaining video that would puncture holes in the claims made by the other side. “We collected all the fast-food brochures and took them to people, asking them if they can recognize the caloric information in there,” recalls Miller. When people tried opening the brochures, that’s when the fun started. “They would just open and open them (the brochures were in a poster format) and suddenly everyone was laughing.”
After the video went viral, the Restaurant Association reversed its course on the brochures. “When you could demonstrate how ludicrous [their alternative plan was], it took the wind out of their sails,” says Miller.