Produce-licking YouTubers attacked by 147-year-old American grocer One of America's oldest grocers has sued two college students for licking its produce on YouTube. Last week, The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company - better known as A&P - slapped a $1m lawsuit on former employees Mark and Matthew D'Avella, accusing the two YouTubers of defaming the 147-year-old grocery chain in an online rap …
surely if two students could afford to pay a $1million lawsuit they would not be working in a grocery store!
the video supplies its own evidence: its obvious he doesn't actually lick the produce, nor really pee on the veg, the logo is so blurry even when told its A&P logo you are hard pressed to make it out, and the store could be anywhere with no obvious signage. there are actually more details on their website, including how the store manager let them film there.
regardless of the outcome the real winners, once again, will be the lawyers, laughing all the way to the bank.
... if there really is a law suite. The kids' web site currently says they have only heard about the suite. It sounds like there was only one customer who complained and how would she have seen the video and known that it was A&P? There's something fishy here.
If A&P really are like that then they need to wake up to the reality of both kids and the internet. They'll loose against both.
before i watched the video i would have thought it was just another corporation bullying them, but afterwards i think A&P are right for suing them.
Check their video at 00:39 that guy is not peeing, he is masturbating and spraying the merchandise with seminal liquid.
Yuck, would any of you buy or eat those afterwards ??
If A&P's customers are so clueless they can't tell reality from a hype video does A&P really want them in their shop?
If I were the shop owner gaining all the exposure for free I'd be slappin the rappin on in store screens to enforce brand recognition - and slappin the rappers for not having done it sooner (that is of course after a deal on royalties).
A&P, go "Beet yourselves off" in a back room somewhere and while you're at it grow up and smell the veg....
Never heard of A&P. Look a bit like Kwik Save to me.
Funny vid and surely when students get sacked they're meant to get petulant and arsey, not the company they work for.
And if the viewer who complained was disgusted and distressed - what the hell are they doing on YouTube ? It's full of far, far, far worse things.
Sounds like a busy body and load of jobs-worth Corps trying to grab some free publicity to me.
If only Vanilla Ice had slapped a patent on 'a method for making poor rap records out of food-related rhymes' when he wrote the lines 'quick to the point to the point no fakin', cooking MCs like a pound of bacon' then he'd be able to get in on the action too.
Then again, I'd imagine there's prior art involved but seeing as I generally regard rap 'music' as 'something to avoid' my knowledge base is happily lacking in this area. I do, however, know all of the words to Mr Ice's seminal classic (is that a euphemism for 'pile of wank'?) so I shall, indeed, get my coat.
A&P have missed a trick here. Whilst I would not go so far as to call the rap "good", it is nonetheless quite endearing and entirely positive about the quality of the produce in the store and sends a valuable message to kids to eat their greens. They should have used this as a marketing ploy... rewrite some of the stuff, remove the mexicans / bitch / nasty shit stuff, slap a couple of disclaimers on it ("At no point were any produce defecated on..") pay these oiks a couple Gs each and hey presto, you've got a down-with-the-kids advertising campaign.
I won't watch it, nor listen to that sort of "music" - but I can't help thinking A&P must be desperate for publicity to bring such a suit. Haven't they ever heard of the "Streisand effect?"
"How can we make sure this really bad video act gets loads and loads of exposure?"
"I know! We'll sue them and try to force them to take it down! That always works!"
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