Post by atyxyt on Apr 3, 2016 0:27:01 GMT
Hello. Recent lurker and I just decided to make an account. I would like to see if you can help find an infamous Colgate commercial from the 60's that went to the Supreme Court.
"Stills from the 1959 "sandpaper" commercial"
From The Museum of Hoaxes
After the quiz show scandals of the 50's, the FTC had 3 employees search for commercials that lied about how they worked and as a result, 4 advertisements, including the Colgate ad, were issued complaints.
Like the museum says, this probably ended in what you now see when mock-ups are shown in ads today.
But no matter where I search, there doesn't seem to be any known footage of this ad aside from the still shots in the museum's page. and it certainly did happen, so why isn't there any footage?
"Stills from the 1959 "sandpaper" commercial"
From The Museum of Hoaxes
In 1959, the Colgate-Palmolive company began airing three TV ads in America for its Palmolive Rapid Shave shaving cream. All three commercials included a "sandpaper test" designed to demonstrate that Rapid Shave's "moisturizing" action was so powerful it would not only soften up even the heaviest beard in seconds, but also make sandpaper shaveable.
A hand holding a razor then reached out and, with one stroke, shaved a strip of the sandpaper smooth.
The picture then shifted to football-player Frank Gifford lathering his face as the voiceover continued, "And super-moisturized Palmolive Rapid-Shave can do the same for you."
In January 1960, after the ads had been airing for months and had become familiar to American TV viewers, the Federal Trade Commission issued a formal complaint against Colgate-Palmolive and its advertising agency, Ted Bates & Co. The FTC charged that the sandpaper ad was deceptive because the ad suggested to viewers that they were seeing a piece of sandpaper being shaved, when what they were actually seeing was plexiglass covered with sand.
Colgate-Palmolive responded with indignation. It explained it hadn't used real sandpaper because of the limitations of photography. On film, sandpaper was indistinguishable from smooth colored paper. Therefore it had felt compelled to use "a device which made it possible to properly show the action on film in a manner consistent with actual performance."
Furthermore, Colgate-Palmolive insisted that scientific research had proven "beyond any doubt" that Rapid Shave did allow sandpaper to be shaved. The company insisted, "This demonstration has been duplicated successfully on many occasions and most recently to an FTC representative who actually made the sandpaper test himself."
But the FTC disagreed and countered, "The limitations of the medium may present a challenge to the creative ingenuity and resourcefulness of copywriters; but surely they could not constitute lawful justification for resort to falsehoods and deception of the public."
What's more, according to the FTC, its own tests had found that Rapid Shave only made sandpaper shaveable after over an hour of soaking, not almost instantly as the ad implied.
A hand holding a razor then reached out and, with one stroke, shaved a strip of the sandpaper smooth.
The picture then shifted to football-player Frank Gifford lathering his face as the voiceover continued, "And super-moisturized Palmolive Rapid-Shave can do the same for you."
In January 1960, after the ads had been airing for months and had become familiar to American TV viewers, the Federal Trade Commission issued a formal complaint against Colgate-Palmolive and its advertising agency, Ted Bates & Co. The FTC charged that the sandpaper ad was deceptive because the ad suggested to viewers that they were seeing a piece of sandpaper being shaved, when what they were actually seeing was plexiglass covered with sand.
Colgate-Palmolive responded with indignation. It explained it hadn't used real sandpaper because of the limitations of photography. On film, sandpaper was indistinguishable from smooth colored paper. Therefore it had felt compelled to use "a device which made it possible to properly show the action on film in a manner consistent with actual performance."
Furthermore, Colgate-Palmolive insisted that scientific research had proven "beyond any doubt" that Rapid Shave did allow sandpaper to be shaved. The company insisted, "This demonstration has been duplicated successfully on many occasions and most recently to an FTC representative who actually made the sandpaper test himself."
But the FTC disagreed and countered, "The limitations of the medium may present a challenge to the creative ingenuity and resourcefulness of copywriters; but surely they could not constitute lawful justification for resort to falsehoods and deception of the public."
What's more, according to the FTC, its own tests had found that Rapid Shave only made sandpaper shaveable after over an hour of soaking, not almost instantly as the ad implied.
After the quiz show scandals of the 50's, the FTC had 3 employees search for commercials that lied about how they worked and as a result, 4 advertisements, including the Colgate ad, were issued complaints.
Like the museum says, this probably ended in what you now see when mock-ups are shown in ads today.
The 1965 Supreme Court ruling remains the main precedent in American law for the use of mock-ups in advertisements. As a result, advertisers are now careful to identify product presentations as "dramatizations" when using mock-ups.
But no matter where I search, there doesn't seem to be any known footage of this ad aside from the still shots in the museum's page. and it certainly did happen, so why isn't there any footage?
