Ad description
Paid-for Instagram and TikTok ads for HiSmile, a company selling teeth whitening products:
a. The Instagram ad, seen on 28 June 2023, featured a caption stating “The V34 Colour Corrector cancels stains in 30 seconds” and a link to the advertiser’s website. A video in the post showed several people demonstrating the use of the product. The product was squirted on to their front teeth and immediately washed away revealing whiter teeth. In one scene, the product was wiped on to the skin of a banana, revealing a white patch where the product had been. A voice-over accompanying the video said, “The V34 product is so strong that yellow stains melt away upon application. And when it comes in contact with teeth, it immediately brightens them.” In another scene, a person placed a yellow balloon in a tub containing the product and removed it immediately revealing it had turned white. They said, “Imagine this yellow balloon is a stain. If I use the colour purple, I can cancel out the yellow stain. Bleaching or whitening teeth is fundamentally about reducing the yellow tones of your teeth. Colour correction achieves a similar very desirable effect as it also reduces the yellow appearance of teeth, but it does so instantly. With colour correcting, the result is entirely on the surface. Nothing is penetrating in, so it is entirely painless and causes zero sensitivity. So effectively you are getting a painless and effective solution for yellow teeth. Proprietary blend of dyes that the V34 uses effectively erases the appearance of yellow. So it’s something that you can paint on and instantly the appearance of teeth look [sic] very much whiter.” The ad also featured a visual of a pale yellow ball which turned white instantly where the product had been poured on to it.
b. The TikTok ad, seen on 22 August 2023, featured a man, dressed in a blue uniform of the kind worn by some medical professionals. He described how tea, coffee and other substances could stain teeth. He said, “But now we know we can apply the V34 Colour Corrector to instantly conceal those stains.” The video showed people wiping or brushing the product on to their teeth, revealing teeth that were immediately whiter. The man held up a box of the product and said, “Now this is a game changer.”
Issue
Two complainants, who believed that teeth could not be whitened instantly, challenged whether the ads misleadingly exaggerated the capability or performance of the product.
Response
HiSmile Pty Ltd said the product used a scientifically proven technique of colour and wavelength cancellation through which teeth appeared brighter or whiter by cancelling out stains, not by instant whitening. They said all claims made in the ads were substantiated by objective and scientific evidence of a standard which they believed was sufficient for cosmetic claims. They supplied six documents and a PowerPoint presentation which they believed explained and demonstrated how the product worked.
HiSmile said that, according to Meta Advertising Resources, 61% of Instagram’s audience profile were aged 18-34 years, which HiSmile believed meant they were sufficiently mature, well-informed, observant and circumspect to recognise the obvious exaggeration in the use of the banana and other objects and would not take that scene as a literal demonstration of how the product worked. HiSmile believed the ad focused on making teeth appear brighter or whiter by cancelling out stains, not by instant whitening. HiSmile said the results seen in the ad on human teeth were real results and held no ability to mislead.
They said the TikTok ad did not refer to whitening teeth but about making them appear whiter using colour correcting technology. They pointed out that text across the screen stated “results may vary, staff results”.
HiSmile believed the overall impression of both ads to the average consumer was that the purple colour of the product cancelled out the stains on the teeth to make them appear whiter and brightened them by counterbalancing yellow staining, but not that teeth were whitened instantly.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA considered consumers would understand both ads to mean that using the product on their teeth would get rid of stains immediately and make teeth appear whiter and brighter. We considered they would not expect the effect to be permanent but that it would have a lasting effect beyond short-term eating and drinking. Ad (a) showed people applying the product to their teeth and then revealing whiter teeth when they washed it away. That impression was reinforced by showing the product being used on a banana and a balloon and revealing white patches where the product had been, and by the voice-over which stated, “The V34 product is so strong that yellow stains melt away upon application. And when it comes in contact with teeth, it immediately brightens them”. We acknowledged that the voice-over suggested that the product worked differently from bleaching or whitening teeth (“Bleaching or whitening teeth is fundamentally about reducing the yellow tones of your teeth. Colour correction achieves a similar very desirable effect as it also reduces the yellow appearance of teeth, but it does so instantly. With colour correcting the result is entirely on the surface. Nothing is penetrating in … So effectively you a getting a painless and effective solution for yellow teeth”). Nevertheless, we considered the impression was that the results would be the same and that they would be instant.
Ad (b) was less detailed but still referred to teeth being stained by tea, coffee and other substances and stated, “… we can apply the V34 Colour Corrector to instantly conceal those stains”. It also showed people brushing their teeth with the product, after which their teeth appeared much whiter.
We therefore expected HiSmile to hold adequate substantiation to support the claims in the way in which we considered consumers were likely to understand them. HiSmile sent six documents and a PowerPoint presentation.
The first document was an unpublished article, described by HiSmile as an independent study conducted by an Emeritus Professor in Dental Sciences who had extensive experience in teeth whitening. HiSmile stated that the study's objective was to validate the effectiveness of colour correcting technology on yellow stains on teeth in general, and to specifically assess the capability of the V34 Colour Corrector product to enhance the perception of brighter teeth after a single use. They said that it found that the product caused teeth to appear brighter after one brush cycle.
The content of the unpublished article provided by HiSmile was replicated in a PowerPoint presentation with a voice-over commentary. They also provided a published version of the same article and a document which included additional data tables relating to tests described in the article and presentation. All four sources were authored by the same individual, the Emeritus Professor in Dental Sciences. We noted that HiSmile's website named that individual as a "Scientific Advisor with HiSmile", and we understood he had been involved in developing the product. The published version of the article included information about the author's qualifications and experience, but did not mention his relationship with HiSmile. We considered these sources did not constitute an independent study as suggested by HiSmile.
The sources contained a technical explanation of how colour correcting technology worked on teeth and a critique of the effectiveness of colour correcting toothpastes that contained blue covarine (a dye which was not used in HiSmile's product). They also recounted the results of tests of HiSmile's V34 Colour Corrector, carried out by the Emeritus Professor twice on himself and once on one other individual, summarising that "[the product] causes an instant intense reduction in yellow and an overall boost in brightness". The sources also referenced that the "colour boosting effect is temporary and lasts for as long as the two dyes remain bound to pellicle (several hours). The effect is reproducible and occurs to the same extent when the product is used again (e.g. 1 week later)". We considered this demonstrated that, in the time since the product was used, the teeth had returned to their more yellow and stained appearance. That was also the complainant's experience and was reported in some of the online reviews of the product that we had read.
While the article appeared to show an immediate increase in whiteness and brightness of the teeth after using the product, we were concerned that the study was not independently conducted, and noted that it reported the results of only three tests, two of which were conducted on the study author. One "before" image showed an individual with limited yellow staining.; the "after" image showed a quite white result. The other "before" image showed an individual with more yellow staining. This was decreased in the "after" image, but the teeth still showed considerable yellow staining. We further noted that the product packaging stated that it was "A post-whitening treatment that restores brightness and neutralises yellow tones on the tooth surface". We understood the product was therefore only intended to be used by individuals who had already undergone conventional tooth whitening treatment such as bleaching, who would therefore have only minimal staining. The ads, however, showed individuals with varying levels of yellow staining achieving bright white teeth after using the product.
We considered that the impression given in the ads was that the product gave similar effects to more conventional tooth whitening methods, in individuals who had not used such treatments: i.e., that it would provide an immediate, very whitening effect which, while it might fade in time, would have a lasting effect beyond short-term eating and drinking. We considered therefore that the tests described in the sources were not in line with the impression given in, and the implied claims made by, the ads.
HiSmile said a second independent clinical study evaluated the concept of colour correcting technology generically and its effect on stained teeth by using digital technology to measure colour and the appearance of colour. They said it found there was a reduction in perceptual yellowness and an increase in perceptual whiteness. It concluded that colour correcting proved to have a noticeable effect on the appearance of teeth and the counterbalancing of stains on teeth. We found, however, that the report commented on the effect on teeth of using colour correcting technology in only the most general terms. It did not refer specifically to the V34 Colour Corrector product. Its conclusions focused on the technical methods of assessing colour and not on whether use of the product would result in whiter teeth (or teeth which appeared whiter) or, given the complainants' experience, the length of time for which any results would last.
Two further studies measured tooth whitening after brushing with silica-based toothpastes containing blue covarine either on its own, or in combination with another blue dye. Both studies reported increases in whitening immediately after use. One study also repeated the comparison two hours after use, but did not draw any conclusions about any differences between the comparisons taken at the two different times. We noted that other sources HiSmile had provided included a critique of the effectiveness of blue covarine containing toothpastes. We noted that HiSmile's product did not contain either of the dyes used in these studies. We therefore considered that neither study was relevant as substantiation for claims about the effectiveness of the V34 Colour Corrector product.
As set out above, we considered the impression given in the ads was that the product gave similar effects to more conventional tooth whitening methods in individuals who had not previously used such methods (i.e. that it had an immediate, very whitening effect, and that while that effect might fade in time, it would have a lasting effect beyond short-term eating and drinking). We accepted that in theory colour correction using purple-based colourants could immediately but temporarily reduce the appearance of yellow staining. However, we concluded that HiSmile had not provided adequate substantiation that the V34 Colour Corrector product would have the effects claimed in the ads, as consumers would understand them, and they were therefore misleading.
The ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising) and 3.7 (Substantiation).
Action
The ads must not appear again in the forms complained of. We told HiSmile Pty Ltd to ensure their ads did not claim or imply that the V34 Colour Corrector was effective in whitening stained teeth, or making them appear whiter, beyond the short-term, unless they held adequate substantiation.
