Pizza Wars.

• Author: Garza, Mariel
• Position: Pizza Hut's deceptive advertising lawsuit against Papa Johns - Brief Article

In the fast and loose world of advertising, every product hawked is the best, or at least better than something else--not to mention new and improved. In this respect, at least, we customers aren't dumb: We know that this is a bragging game and that we shouldn't take every claim literally.

But apparently we aren't smart enough to figure that out about the slogan, "Better Ingredients. Better Pizza," used by the Louisville-based chain Papa John's. In January, a Dallas judge ordered Papa John's to stop using the slogan, and to pay Pizza Hut almost $500 million for the damage the ads had allegedly done.

The war began a few years ago, when Papa John's launched an ad campaign comparing its ingredients to what "other chains use," making particularly derisive references to dehydrated...