P&G drags HUL to advertising council  ( July '22,2008, Economic Times)

A marketing slugfest between two consumer product giants operating in the beauty care space Procter & Gamble India (P&G ) and Hindustan Unilever (HUL) may turn out to be ugly.

P&G has dragged HUL to the doors of the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), on two of HUL's skin cream television commercials.

P&G, according to sources, is irked by HUL's claims in these commercials, one of which says that consumers prefer the latter’s brand Fair & Lovely Multivitamin 99 out of the 100 times as against the other international skin cream brands in the market.

The advertisement, said sources, directly hits out at P&Gs $2-billion global skincare brand, Olay Total Effects, launched in India a year ago.

The other commercial claims that Pond's Flawless White gives consumers a flawless skin in just seven days. P&G, which declined to comment on the matter, has stated in its complaint to ASCI that the claims made by HUL are exaggerated. Though HUL declined comment on the complaints, a spokesman said: "The advertisement (for Fair & Lovely) is intended to communicate to the consumers certain facts and attributes of our product, which are based on consumer research and as per accepted industry practice. The TV commercial and claims made therein are based on independent support data."

Regarding the seven-day challenge by Ponds Flawless White, the Hindustan Unilever spokesman said: "The challenge was that if there is no visible improvement of skin in seven days, then the money will be reimbursed by Ponds. This campaign offers proof of the pudding."

Even while Hidustan Unilever has made public the Fair & Lovely Multivitamin study, which benchmarks the brand against other international skincare brands, Procer & Gamble is not taking it lying down. P&G has claimed that Olay Total Effects is proven to be effective against seven signs of ageing, an insight which the company claims to have got from a global survey conducted across three continents involving 6,000 consumers.