It Is All About Substantiation

The Superintendence of Industry and Commerce initiated an investigation against UNIVELER, specifically, concerning the advertisement of the goods identified with the trademarks DOVE and POND’S. The administrative sanctioning procedure showed that the objective conditions announced in the advertising under study did not have reliable scientific support. This is one of the most important issues to take into account when making any objective claim. Nonetheless, there are more conditions, the scientific support cannot come from the same company, but from a third independent party, in order for it to be considered as reliable. The purposes of these requirements are for the consumer to receive protection against misleading advertising and for the consumer to obtain clear, truthful, sufficient, timely, verifiable, understandable, accurate and suitable information about the advertised products. The claims in question regarding DOVE were the following: "Can prevent hair damage before it occurs" "deeply nourishes avoiding 90% of damage before it occurs" The claim "can prevent hair damage before it occurs" is imprecise, since studies did not show that damage reduction can be accomplished before it occurs. The messages distort the scope of the promised results, as they do not specify that the damage referred to concerns only the breakage of the hair, much less do they inform that the results will be obtained after subjecting the hair to certain processes. Unilever issued messages that are likely to lead consumers to believe that their hair could remain unharmed (prevent hair damage before it occurs), even after being subjected to aggressive physical and chemical processes such as bleaching or thermal styling. As for POND’S claims: "Pond's age miracle" A solution to reduce wrinkles and age spots " "Pond's age miracle offers you three benefits in a single product: Reduces wrinkles, diminishes age spots, and spots caused by the sun '' The message transmitted is not verifiable, since it does not establish the results of the measurements carried out, nor is it clear how the adherence to the indications for use of the product was reviewed, nor the benefit obtained by the volunteers, so in no way demonstrated that the product is "A solution to reduce wrinkles and age spots", and in that sense, since these statements have not been verified, said information is not considered truthful, since it raises expectations in the recipient that are not feasible to be satisfied, since they do not have scientific studies that allow verifying its veracity and therefore it violates the Consumer Protection Statute. The fine for lack of substantiation in this case was of approximately USD$194,000. A good incentive to be careful.