MRTPC rejects Godrej Soaps’ plea against Super Vasmol ad

Namrata Singh

Mumbai, June 3: The Monopolies & Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) has rejected Godrej Soaps’ application for injunction against Hygienic Research Institute’s Super Vasmol 33 advertisement, which Godrej Soaps said was “misleading” and “disparaging” to its hair dye brand.

The two-member bench comprising Justice RC Anand and Justice Moksh Mahajan pronounced on May 30, 2001, that the application for injunction relief and for institution of inquiry have no merit or substance and deserve to be rejected.

The 30 second Vasmol television commercial in question opens with the picture of a lady dying her hair with instant hair dye from two cylindrical bottles labelled as ‘sadharan’, as in ‘ordinary’. The picture then widens to show the anguish of the lady with falling hair.

This is stated to be the result of use of inferior dye containing harmful chemicals affecting the roots of the hair. It ends up with the picture of “Vasmol 33 Hair Dye” which is stated to contain Ayurprash and is a natural way of blackening the hair and strengthening the roots of the hair.

The senior counsel for Godrej Soaps had argued that the impugned advertisement showing the cylindrical bottles clearly identifies with Godrej Hair Dye.

The counsel reasoned that by making false and misleading statements, the product of Godrej has been disparaged.

The counsel added that by labelling it as ‘sadharan’ it further projects the Godrej product as inferior, having no special merit in it.

The senior counsel for Hygienic Research Institute contended that the Vasmol ad in question targets dozens of small number of manufacturing units in the unorganised sector which are using harmful chemicals in their dyes, and not established dyes like Godrej and Tru Tone.

The similarity of bottles as used by other instant hair dyes like Vellatone, Royal, ROCCO in no way point to Godrej Hair Dye which has a 43 per cent market share.

The counsel defended that being oil based, Vasmol 33 is not comparable with that of Godrej Hair Dye.
The MRTPC bench, in its judgement, maintained that the amount spent on the campaign by Hygienic Research Institute has been primarily with the object of promoting its own trade.

Vasmol dye has been in the market for the last 43 years with a 16 per cent share in 2000, while Godrej hair dye entered the market in 1974, and has captured a market share of 43 per cent. “It is with the obvious intention of capturing tapped or untapped share of the market. While in order to promote its product, one has a right to project its goods to be one of the best in the world and he can also say
that his goods are better than the competitors and while doing so he can compare the advantages of his goods over the goods of others. He cannot, however, say that the competitor goods are bad by making false and misleading statement, which is not permissible,” the bench maintained.

“The advertisement in question no doubt refers to instant hair dye and Godrej hair dye is
one amongst many instant hair dyes available in the market.

So are the two cylindrical bottles like that of Godrej, in which are contained other various instant hair dyes. These, in themselves, are not sufficient to identify the informant’s product which is one amongst many in the market contained in the similar cylindrical bottles,” it said. “Normally, one would not associate the dye of the leading marketeer and that too of a well known industrial house to be
‘sadharan’ as the bottles are labelled in the advertisement. There is less likelihood of the informant’s (Godrej) dye to be identified as ‘sadharan’. The informant has itself objected to the use of the word sadharan against its dye which in its own view is considered to be ‘special’,” it further declared.

The judgement said that the of the video clip of 30 seconds on the television, the focus on the bottles is to the extent of 24 frames ie, half a second which is hardly enough to register any impression on the consumer in regards to the size, shape, etc of the bottles shown.

“It has also not been shown that by not injuncting the advertisement there would be irreparable loss caused to the complainant. The projected decline in sales from 12.7 per cent to 8.3 per cent from May 1999 to May 2000 is before the impugned advertisement was aired,” it noted, adding that a further decline in the market share could be due to various reasons including the marketing of Godrej Kesh Kala and Godrej Soft Dye in August 2000 or to the availability of other brands of imported dyes in the market.

“There is no evidence of a single consumer being misled by the said advertisement and having complained of harmful effects as stated in the advertisement.

Public wrong if any has to be factually shown which is conspicuous by its absence,” the bench maintained.