Subway's Footlong was 11 inches long — the settlement paid lawyers, not customers

In January 2013 an Australian teenager measured his Subway 'Footlong' with a tape, found eleven inches of sandwich, and posted the photo to Facebook. It went viral around the world, Subway franchisees acknowledged that bread lengths varied, and a US class action followed: customers had paid for a foot and bought eleven inches.

Subway settled in February 2016: it agreed to institute practices ensuring its 'Footlong' bread measured a full 12 inches for at least four years. The money told the story the brand could not: the deal paid class counsel $520,000 and gave ten named plaintiffs $500 each — the class itself received nothing.

The shape of the deal became the next story. In August 2017 the Seventh Circuit reversed the settlement, agreeing with objectors that the suit had been 'opportunistic entirely', and threw out the fee award. The brand damage had been done years earlier, by a tape measure: the name of the flagship product had been a round-up.