Tom Rinks: Taco Bell offered multi-million dollar settlement right before federal trial
Tom Rinks · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks · Mar 27, 2023 · at 34:36
Tom Rinks, creator of the Psycho Chihuahua character, describes his federal court trial against Taco Bell over the brand's chihuahua advertising campaign.
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“The first time they offered us something was at the trial. It was just before it started. They had lots of lawyers on their side. We had our little three lawyers on our side, and the judge came out, everybody rose, the jury was in, and they went up and said they'd like to see everybody in chambers, and so the judge asked us all to come in and talk about, I don't remember the number, but because I was Dazed, but they offered us a few million dollars to settle right there.”
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“They tested that ad in the northeast, which has happened to be where I was in Michigan, and I just lost it, you know, because it was the commercial that I'd written. You know, the first three commercials were our commercials, like we had storyboarded and share…”
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Tom Rinks: Taco Bell collaborated with creators for 18 months before ghosting
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Tom Rinks: We would have accepted a $200,000 settlement from Taco Bell
“If they would have offered us, they're gonna hate to hear this right now, but if they would have offered us 200,000, We'd have taken it.”
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“Be really disciplined on who the, what the brand is, right? If you look at Ben and Jerry's and the names of their products and the humor and the way they write, they went all in on that liquid death, all in on their edge. It's just so, I know who they are.”