Oral care giant Hismile has been using AI generated content across several of its social media ads, some of which show warped mouths, a woman’s ring switching hands and unnatural looking human skin.
It comes just weeks after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) ordered the brand to pay a whopping fine after it used employees to create fake misleading testimonials.
At the time, Hismile was fined $138,600 in penalties for seven infringement notices for alleged false and misleading representations in its social media advertising.
According to Meta’s Ad Library, one of the recent ads ran from 31 May to 22 June.
The video shows a woman dressed in pink branded scrubs of a Brisbane dental practice talking about the benefits of a Hismile product.
The ad showed her talking to camera while wearing dental loupes, a magnification tool used by many dentists and dental hygienists to enhance their vision.
It then showed her performing dental work on a patient and later looking through a microscope. These shots show signs of AI generation.
“[The practice] did not approve the alteration or manipulation of the relevant imagery in the manner shown,” the clinic said in a statement to the ABC.
“The matter has been raised with Hismile, and [the practice] has requested immediate removal and clarification.”
The ad carried a number of disclaimers in small text but only “Hismile partner endorsement” appeared over the section featuring the woman.
Another ad showed decayed teeth rapidly healing after a liquid substance was put on them.
The clips carried a disclaimer which read, “visual depicted is a dramatisation for entertainment purposes only”.
In June this year, when Hismile paid $138,000 in penalties to the ACCC, the ACCC said at the time that the ads saw “apparently random shoppers in a public setting tried Hismile’s products and expressed their satisfaction with the results”.
But those “random shoppers” turned out to be Hismile employees.
B&T has requested a statement from Hismile.
