False Advertising by L’Oreal?
According to a recent article in Ad Age, consumers are suing L’Oreal for false advertising. The nature of the misleading advertisement is that their Fructis shampoos and conditioners can make your hair 5 times stronger. See the post we recently did on how companies measure hair strength.
Looks like a few consumers really didn’t notice any difference in hair strength. It’s not surprising. What is surprising is that this is a real court case. This Brain can’t help but think this is a waste of the American taxpayer’s money and court time. Who is really harmed by these claims? And who wants hair that is 5 times stronger? Would you really want your hair to be as strong as steel?
Puffery the Magic Dragon
An interesting aspect of this story is the notion of a “puffery” claim. These are claims that are non-specific and aren’t supposed to mean anything substantial. For example, hypoallergenic, healthy hair, beautiful hair. We discussed these types of claims previously in a post on whether you could trust cosmetic companies. Here’s a surprise, while you can absolutely trust the quality of the cosmetic products you buy, you mostly can’t trust the advertising of cosmetic companies.
Why? Because the differences between the best technologies is so small, average consumers can’t really notice. If you tried Pantene, Fructis, Dove, Matrix, and Paul Mitchel shampoos but you didn’t know which one was which from the bottle or the product’s fragrance, you would be hard pressed to tell any difference. They will all work. So, to make themselves stand out, companies have to come up with these wild claims to make consumers pick their product over someone else’s.
Prove it all night
Certainly, L’Oreal will be able to prove that they are not lying when they say they are making hair 5 times stronger. They’ve developed some lab test that will support their claim. But here’s a secret, all those other brands could run the same test to show that their products will make hair stronger. It’s unfortunate, but that’s how the business works.
Incidentally, if you or a loved one has suffered damages because you believed L’Oreal when they told you that your hair was going to be 5 times stronger, this legal firm is willing to take you on as a client. Ya gotta love America.
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