Their ad campaign is fronted by former Blue Peter presenter Katy Hill and their claim is that brushing with toothpaste that contains baking soda can give you a bright, shiny smile, but now Arm & Hammer are having to concede defeat and pull the commercials after almost half of customers asked said they saw no improvement in the colour of their teeth.
The advertisement promises that the baking soda contained in Arm & Hammer toothpaste would give a ‘wow deep clean’ and could whiten teeth ‘brilliantly’ – also claiming to have been clinically tested to improve teeth by up to three shades or your money back. Contrary to this claim, the Advertising Standards Authority found that during a trial of the product 43% of users saw no change or were left with darker teeth; the commercials have now been banned in the UK.
The ASA judged the US brand to be making misleading claims and said that, in their opinion ‘the ad implied the product would whiten the teeth of regular users, and that some users of the product would achieve up to three shades of perceptible change on an incremental scale. Because the study was not sufficiently robust, and a significant proportion of subjects had darker teeth or no change after using the toothpaste, we concluded the whitening claims had not been substantiated.’
Following the investigation the TV advertising campaign and similar claims made on the company’s website have been banned.