A TV ad featuring Mad Men actress Christina Hendricks promoting a Clairol hair colour product has been banned by the UK advertising watchdog for exaggerating its effects.
The actress, best known for her role as red-headed Joan Harris from hit series Mad Men, is featured in the TV ad transforming her look to blond hair.
The Advertising Standards Authority received two complaints from hair colour experts who believed that the colour change shown in the TV ad could not be achieved only using the Clairol Nice ‘n Easy.
The complaints believed that the ad misleadingly exaggerated the capability of the Procter & Gamble-owned product.
Procter & Gamble said that for various reasons Hendricks’s hair had first been dyed blond then dyed vibrant red. The ad shows the transformation the opposite way round.
“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 ASA ruled. “We told Procter & Gamble to ensure they were in a position to adequately substantiate their objective claims in the future.”
