The Plaintiffs, representatives of a proposed consumer class, alleged that the Defendant’s packaged food product was deceptively labeled because its flavor was not derived solely or predominantly from the fruit identified on the front label, and that this omission misled consumers who wanted a product flavored mainly from that fruit. In support of the allegations and class certification, Plaintiffs’ retained expert conducted a consumer survey purporting to measure confusion regarding the source of the product’s flavoring and the claim’s impact on consumer expectations and product choice.
Keegan & Donato was retained by the Defendant for a dual engagement: first, to evaluate the methodological validity and reliability of the opposing expert’s survey, and second, to design and execute an independent, methodologically sound consumer study addressing the materiality of the contested claim. The rebuttal analysis identified numerous deficiencies in the opposing survey, including a leading questionnaire design that over-emphasized the issue in dispute, a failure to replicate actual marketplace shopping conditions, an inappropriate side-by-side comparison format, incomplete and overlapping answer choices, and small, statistically unreliable sample sizes. Keegan & Donato’s own affirmative study surveyed hundreds of relevant purchasers nationwide using a test-versus-control design, comparing consumer reactions to the product as currently labeled against an otherwise identical version bearing a modified, more qualified version of the claim.
The findings weighed against the materiality of the contested claim on several independent measures. Even taken at face value, the opposing expert’s own data showed only a small, not statistically significant shift in consumer understanding between the original and modified labeling. Keegan & Donato’s own study corroborated this conclusion: a majority of consumers found no appeal whatsoever in the contested claim, and among those who did, there was no statistically significant difference in appeal, purchase intent, or perceived value for money between the test product bearing the contested claim and the control product bearing the modified claim. On each key measure, the test and control findings were statistically equivalent at the 95 percent confidence level.
Because the study isolated the specific claim at issue through a controlled test vs. control design while correcting for the leading and unreliable design choices identified in the opposing survey, the results provided reliable evidence that the contested labeling claim was not material to consumers’ purchasing decisions.