A TVC for home hair dye Nicen’ Easy has been deemed misleading by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the UK because the ad shows famous red head Mad Men actress Christina Hendricks miraculously turning blonde.
The ASA ruled that Procter & Gamble’s ad mislead viewers to believe Hendricks’ dye job — a bright red to a golden blonde — was shot in the order of the transformation — when in reality, the commercial was first filmed in reverse order.
“For the ‘blonde’ ad, P&G first coloured her hair using shade 8G in October 2014 and shot the part of the ad that showed her with blonde hair a few days later. Christina Hendricks’ hair was then dyed using the red shade on the following day after filming, with the part of the TV ad that showed her with red hair being shot the day after that.”
https://youtu.be/doGilbieMJ0
The ruling came after two hair colour educators filed complaints to the ASA claiming: “The colour change depicted could not have been achieved using the product alone, challenged whether the ad misleadingly exaggerated the capability of the product.”
The ASA ruled: “Because the visual claim had not been substantiated, and given that the sequence in which the model’s hair was coloured leading up to the TV shoots did not match the depiction in the ad, we concluded that it misleadingly exaggerated the capability of the product.”
The ad will be removed in its current form in the UK.
