Advertising watchdog questions Colgate claims about Optic White
Procter & Gamble won several concessions from the National Advertising Division (NAD), a self-regulatory system administered by the Council of Better Business Bureaus, regarding advertising by Colgate Palmolive about its Optic White Toothpaste product.
NAD recommended that Colgate-Palmolive discontinue certain claims for Optic White Toothpaste, including the claim, “Same Whitening Ingredient as Strips.”
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The advertising message – “Same Ingredient as Strips” — appeared in print and Internet advertising, a television commercial, and on product packaging and in-store displays. Procter & Gamble, which manufactures Crest 3D Whitestrips, challenged the claim.
In addition, NAD also examined whether the advertising conveyed the implied messages that:
• Peroxide, a whitening agent in Optic White, provides a significant whitening benefit that is comparable to Crest Whitestrips
• The peroxide in Optic White provides a whitening benefit that is meaningful to consumers
• Optic White whitens intrinsic stains, provides comparable whitening efficacy to strips, provides superior whitening to other toothpastes and contains at least 1% hydrogen peroxide through the shelf life of the product
A NAD statement said, “Following its review of the evidence in the record, which included the results of consumer-perception testing offered by P&G, NAD concluded that the advertiser’s evidence was insufficiently reliable to support the claim, ‘Same Whitening Ingredient as Strips,’ or the messages implied by the claim – including the messages that the hydrogen peroxide as contained in Optic White functions as a significant whitening agent on both intrinsic and extrinsic stains or that Optic White provides the same level of whitening improvement as Whitestrips – and recommended that these claims be discontinued.”
NAD did determine, though, that Colgate provided adequate support for a claim that its product contains 1% hydrogen peroxide, along with an advertised claim that Optic White “removes stains that non-whitening fluoride toothpastes do not.”
Colgate, in its advertiser’s statement, said the company disagreed with with NAD’s findings, including NAD’s concerns regarding the “literally truthful claim ‘Same Whitening Ingredient As Strips,’ since Colgate believes that this exact and similar ingredient claims have been prevalent in the whitening category for many years.”
Colgate noted that it supports the “self-regulatory process, and will take NAD’s decision into account in its future marketing plans for Optic White.”
