Colgate-Palmolive calls out Dove in soap scum fracas
By Todd Wasserman on Thu Jul 29 2010
No one wants to hear that their product is on the scummy side. Hence Colgate-Palmolive's recent challenge to Unilever over a Dove Beauty Bar ad. In advertisements and online videos, the soap is shown to be different from other soaps because it doesn't leave soap scum. Dove's claim in the ad is backed by a putative scientist who explains that the soap doesn't interact with calcium the way other soaps do. Colgate-Palmolive, which makes Irish Spring, disagreed with the assertion and went to the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, which decided that Dove's claim was bunk and so is a "mirror demonstration" in the ad which NAD believes is rigged. This isn't the first time that Dove has been accused of disingenuous claims in its marketing. According to some reports, the "Real Beauty" ads for the brand were Photoshopped and a recent casting call set exacting terms for what exactly "Real Beauty" is. On the other hand, does anyone believe that the Irishmen in the old Irish Spring really cavorted in cable-knit sweaters, cutting their soap with pocket knives?
