Crest Whitestrips Ad Comparison To Simply White Gets Mixed NAD Review

Procter & Gamble's recent TV ad humorously comparing Crest Whitestrips to Colgate Simply White makes an adequately supported superior whitening claim, but "falsely denigrates" the Colgate-Palmolive product, the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus concludes in a recent review.

As a result, the group recommends the ad be discontinued or modified to "more accurately represent the application process and performance capability of Colgate's Simply White product." The inquiry will be published in an upcoming Case Reports.

P&G said the ad is scheduled to be discontinued shortly anyway and that it would "take NAD's concerns into account" for future advertising. The company added it disagreed with NAD's conclusion "on the issue of disparagement."

The spot, known as "woman talks through her teeth," portrays the user of a paint-on tooth whitener saying she must avoid moving her lips to keep the whitening product on her teeth. The actress mumbles her lines to the camera over subtitles, which read: "I can't talk. I'm using that paint-on teeth whitener. If I move my lips, my saliva will wash most of it away in two minutes."

The ad also shows a split-screen close up of teeth to demonstrate the effect of each whitener after 14 days, while a voiceover states, "with Crest Whitestrips, the strip stays for 30 minutes so it whitens five times better." The other product is packaged in a bottle that is nearly identical to Simply White.

The commercial was developed by P&G in-house and broke in the fall of 2002 (¹ 'The Tan Sheet' Nov. 25, 2002, In Brief). NAD's review was prompted by Colgate, which introduced Simply White in September as a lower-price alternative to Whitestrips (² (Also see "Colgate Tackles Whitening Treatment Market With Lower-Priced Alternative" - Pink Sheet, 13 May, 2002.), p. 5).

Colgate provided a consumer perception survey to support its position that the superior whitening claim was being interpreted in a way that could not be substantiated by P&G's test data.

According to the survey, more than half of consumers surveyed believed the "five times whiter" claim means that after using Whitestrips, their teeth will be five times whiter than if they had used Simply White, a claim P&G cannot support, Colgate said. The comparative claim should have specified that the increase in whiteness achieved using Whitestrips is five shades greater than that achieved by using Simply White, the challenger said.

However, NAD concludes the Colgate survey was flawed in that the majority of respondents failed to perceive or report a comparative message and a key close-ended question was "leading and suggestive."

The CBBB division also determines "the 'whitens five times better' claim as it appears in the context of the challenged commercial was substantiated" by P&G's data.

On the issue of disparagement, the group agrees with Colgate that the ad "falsely denigrates the Simply White product as ineffectual and difficult to use." According to NAD, product demonstrations "are permissible advertising techniques provided that they accurately reflect how the advertised product works and do not materially distort the characteristics."

In the Whitestrips commercial, the "exaggerated, clenched smile together with the spokeswoman's dialogue, including the rhetorical question, 'How well can it whiten?' conveys an implied message that the product is ineffectual," the group states.

NAD concludes the "portrayed use of the product, though highly colorful, was also highly disparaging as well as in direct contradiction to the product's stated instructions for use."

Simply White's label instructs users to try not to let their lips or tongue touch their teeth for 30 seconds after the product is applied. The commercial suggested consumers may not be able to move their lips for two minutes after application.

P&G argued that informing consumers how long a product stays on teeth to whiten is an "appropriate and relevant" basis for comparison. The company also maintained Colgate did not show that the typical consumer found the comparison portrayed Simply White as ineffectual.

In a review prompted last year by Rembrandt marketer Den-Mat, NAD found a P&G commercial claiming Whitestrips "restores teeth to their original whiteness" was unsubstantiated (³ (Also see "P&G Crest Whitestrips “Original Whiteness” Claim Unsubstantiated – NAD" - Pink Sheet, 15 Jul, 2002.), p. 9).