Ad for Nivea Anti-Wrinkle Cream Banned for Being Misleading

A commercial for a Nivea product claiming to make women feel even more attractive than they were 10 years ago has been banned in the UK after complaints were lodged with watchdog ASA.

The Daily Mail reports the ad caused quite some fuss with viewers for hinting that women using the anti-wrinkle cream from Nivea would end up feeling more attractive than they were a decade ago.

The Advertising Standards Authority has subsequently banned the commercial for making unsubstantiated claims and misleading customers.

“The commercial showed a woman moisturizing her face in front of a mirror, with a voiceover stating ‘Nivea Visage Anti-Wrinkle Q10 Plus helps reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles’,” the Mail writes.

“A group of her friends then greeted her with a birthday cake, and the voiceover continued: ‘So it’s no surprise that 37 percent of women feel more attractive now than they did ten years ago’,” the publication further notes.

According to the same source, customers found the ad misleading because it did not specify whether the 37 percent referred to all women in general or only those who use Nivea.

“Manufacturers Beiersdorf said that the claim had been taken from a survey conducted on attitudes and philosophies to life, adding that the 12,267 responses came from subscribers to the Nivea e-mail newsletter,” the Mail says.

Chances are most of them are Nivea users since they chose to take the survey, but the maker couldn’t offer concrete proof that they were – or specify a number of them that were users of Nivea products.

Still, the percentage of women who said they felt more attractive than 10 years ago “was actually a response to a general attitudes survey and not linked to using Nivea products at all,” the Mail notes.

In other words, the figure offered as a reference point actually had nothing to do with the product that was being advertised.

“The ASA considered that the claim would be understood by consumers to mean that 37 percent of women interviewed felt more attractive because they used the advertised product,” the ASA says in a statement.