ASA Adjudication on Beiersdorf UK Ltd

Ad

A cinema ad for face cream showed a woman moisturising her face in front of a mirror. A voice-over stated "Nivea Visage Anti-Wrinkle Q10 Plus helps reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles." A large group of the woman's friends were then shown arriving and surprising her with a birthday cake. The voice-over stated "So it's no surprise that 37% of women feel more attractive now than they did ten years ago." Superimposed text stated “37% of 12,267 women interviewed”. Text in the centre of the screen then stated "37% of women feel more attractive now than they did ten years ago". The ad ended with a product shot accompanied by on-screen text that stated "Feel Closer".

Issue

The complainant challenged whether the ad was misleading, because it did not make clear whether the claim "37% of women feel more attractive now than they did ten years ago" related to a survey of women generally or to those who had used the advertised product.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Beiersdorf UK Ltd (Beiersdorf) said the claim "37% of women feel more attractive now than they did ten years ago" was taken from a survey conducted on attitudes and philosophies to life. They said the women who contributed their views were all subscribers to the NIVEA e-mail newsletter, to which they had opted in on the NIVEA website. They said although 95 per cent of the respondents were NIVEA users, they could not say how many used the advertised product specifically. Beiersdorf supplied a copy of the survey from which the claim was taken.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA considered that the claim "Nivea Visage Anti-Wrinkle Q10 Plus helps reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. So it's no surprise that 37% of women feel more attractive now than they did ten years ago" would be understood by consumers to mean that 37% of women interviewed felt more attractive because they used the advertised product.

However, we understood from the survey that respondents had been asked whether they agreed with the statement "I feel more attractive today than I did ten years ago" in general terms, rather than in relation to the advertised product or its effects. We considered that the ad presented the relationship between the advertised product and the survey results in a way that was ambiguous, and could be confusing for consumers, and we therefore concluded that the ad was misleading.

The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 11) clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Truthfulness).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)