Is Sonic Guilty of False Advertisement?

When you think of Sonic Drive Through Restaurants, you think of tots, slushes, shakes, and corn dogs. They offer other items on the menu, but these are just the ones that most individuals think about when heading to Sonic.

Would you think of False Advertisement to add to that list? You would want to say no as the answer, but I think the answer might be yes.

Normally, you go about your everyday life doing routine things and never think about the common denominator right in front of your face. I am guilty of that as I would go to Sonic and use the Sonic APP to order ice tea, an arnold palmer or sometimes cold brew vanilla coffee depending on my day.

I must say I normally go to dunkin donuts for coffee and sometimes dutch brothers for lemonade now that one is finally in my area. There are still days I think about heading to Sonic and order me a route 44 drink as they do offer great deals through their app. I use to go there alot before dunkin donuts and dutch brothers decided to open up around my area.

Now with the financial economy still upon us and unfortunately getting worse, I am watching my dollars and sense budgeting on my restaurant enjoyments. I don't order my dunkin donuts, dutch brothers, or Sonic as much as I use to, but I still go here and there to enjoy a nice treat or drink as I still deserve to enjoy life through treating myself.

Well I was going back to Sonic as they have been emailing me with incentives to see them again. I love incentive marketing as that is a perfect way of a restaurant showing me how much they care about my loyalty. I started going back to Sonic on the weekends and once or twice during the week to get me a nice route 44 drink. Being I recently became pescatarian, I don't really eat meat anymore so there is really nothing I can order at Sonics besides their tots or grilled cheese. I do order those at times when I go there to get my favorite Route 44 drink on my great Sonic APP.

Due to my dismay, I noticed something that I haven't notice in the many years I been going to Sonic and ordering drinks on the app. I was ordering a route 44 cold brew coffee on my Sonic app a they offer half price on drinks and slushies 4pm to 6pm but if you order through the app it is 24 hours a day.

I order my route 44 Arnold Palmer (Ice Tea and Lemonade) and a route 44 lemonade slushie for my girl and decided to order a Route 44 vanilla cold brew coffee as well.

Then it happened!!! My eyes missed this so many times but caught it this time due to my budgeting. The Sonic app gave me half price on my Arnold Palmer and my Lemonade Slushie but charged me full price on my Vanilla Cold Brew coffee. Wait a minute, I thought coffee was a beverage and considered a drink. I went to the dictionary and wikepedia to check for my answer. Sure enough, it states that coffee and ice tea is considered a beverage drink. Why is it then that I get half price on my ice tea but not on my coffee?

I couldn't believe it. Sonic of all restaurants and one of my favorites, was being seen as one guilty of false advertising. Subway did it with their footlongs but Sonic...noooooo...there is no way Sonic would want to be on that list of false advertising restaurants. Unfortunately, it appears that they are now on that list. I will be contacting Sonic and might even contact a law firm as maybe others like me who orders a Cold Brew Coffee at Sonic might want something for the dollars they lost due to not receiving half price off their drink.

Imagine if you bought a Sonic Route 44 Cold Brew Coffee everyday for a year (365 days) and received the half price discount as advertised. That means that you would have saved $2.24 per order (Half price of $4.49) which totals $817.60 for that year. Imagine the millions of dollars that Sonic Drive Thru Restaurant made off of its customers due to not having their Cold brew coffee half price as advertised.

According to Statista, Cold Brew is most popular with younger generations but also are enjoyed by many millennials as well. 15% of Sonic Coffee drinkers are age 60 and over while 85% of Sonic Coffee drinkers are age 18-50.

I decided to email Tommy Deeley (Vice President of Operations for Sonic) and Kevin Knutson (Vice President of Operations and Training for Sonic) hoping to get a response from either of them and rectify this major error on the app. Hopefully, they will see it in their hearts to show their apologies by offering something to their loyal customers who purchase Vanilla Cold Brew and Cold Brew coffee on their Sonic app.

What do you think about this? Feel free to comment or write Sonic as well. I am sure I am not the only one that orders a Cold Brew Coffee at Sonic on their app.

Thank you for reading my article and feel free to listen to our new podcasts on www.getupradiomedia.com and to our radio station at www.getupradio.com and www.radioapp.org.

Alan Cousin

Founder of Get Up Radio / Get Up Radio Media Broadcasting LLC

Member of the National Press Club of Washington, D.C. (www.press.org)

Founder of Better Business Promotion Solutions Group LLC (www.bbpsg.com)

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