ASA Adjudication on Direct Beauty Products Ltd

Ad

A national press ad for a skin serum showed a woman receiving an injection to her forehead. Text stated "LOOK 10 YEARS YOUNGER with NO painful injections! ... Reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles to create a younger looking you! ... Crows feet, bags under the eyes, frown lines, laughter lines all betray our age and sometimes make us look even older than we really are. Expensive surgery and painful injections can help, but even they do not offer a permanent solution. Now Vivatage offers an inexpensive, pain free alternative to other cosmetic treatments. Vivatage contains Argireline. This has been proven to work by relaxing muscle contractions in the face and thereby reducing the appearance of wrinkles." The ad also contained two "before" and "after" photographs with a caption that stated "AMAZING RESULTS WHEN YOU USE VIVATAGE". One "before" photo showed many lines around a woman's eye and the other showed many lines around the mouth and jaw. In both "after" photos these lines were no longer visible or were significantly less visible.

Issue

1. A reader challenged whether the before and illustrations were genuine and an accurate representation of the likely effects of using the product.

2. The ASA challenged whether the ad misleadingly implied that consumers using the product would achieve a comparable effect to cosmetic injections.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

The media agency UKAMS replied on behalf of Direct Beauty Products Ltd (Direct Beauty). They said they had been in contact with Copy Advice regarding the ad. They did not send evidence to support their claims.

Assessment

1. Upheld

The ASA noted UKAMS assertion that they had been in contact with the CAP Copy Advice team regarding Direct Beauty's advertising for Vivatage. However, we also noted that neither the ASA nor CAP had been sent any evidence to support the claims made in the ad. We considered that the "before" and "after" illustrations together with the surrounding text gave the impression the product could deliver "AMAZING RESULTS" and make consumers "look 10 years younger". Because we had not seen any evidence to demonstrate that the "before" and "after" illustrations were genuine or were an accurate representation of the likely effects of using the product we concluded the ad was likely to mislead on those grounds.

On this point the ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 and 7.2 (Truthfulness), 14.1, 14.3 and 14.4 (Testimonials) 50.1, 50.7 (Health and beauty products and therapies - general) and 50.24 (Cosmetics).

2. Upheld

We considered that the image of a woman receiving an injection in her forehead together with the claim "Vivatage offers an inexpensive, pain free alternative to other cosmetic treatments" implied the product could provide a comparable alternative to cosmetic injections. We noted we had not seen evidence to show that. We noted the smallprint stated "Vivatage is not injected and does not contain Botox" but concluded that did not counter the misleading impression that consumers using the product would achieve a similar effect.

On this point the ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 and 7.2 (Truthfulness), 14.1, 14.3 and 14.4 (Testimonials) 50.1, 50.7 (Health and beauty products and therapies - general) and 50.24 (Cosmetics).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Direct Beauty to consult the CAP Copy Advice team before advertising again.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)