Battle between washing powder giants turns dirty

LONDON: Procter and Gamble, an American consumer products giant, this weekend turned up the heat in its campaign against rival Unilever by launching an advertising campaign lambasting the Anglo-Dutch firm's new product, Persil Power.

The campaign, which analysts believe is unprecedented in British advertising history, compares clothes shredded after washing in a ''powder with accelerator'' - a clear reference to Persil Power - with clothes washed in Ariel, P & G's product.

Unilever executives will meet today to decide how to react to P&G's latest attack. It is considering a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority, and its lawyers will carefully vet P & G's claims that the powder causes damage to clothes and that its special manganese-based accelerator ingredient remains in clothes, causing damage even when a customer switches to another powder.

''The whole basis of Procter's case is on active manganese carry-over reacting with its Ariel powder. We reject that claim absolutely,'' said a Unilever spokesman.

Unilever has been on the back foot in its battle with P & G, and appeared to concede some ground to the American company when it reduced the level of accelerator in Persil Power soon after its launch. P & G commissioned tests on the reformulated powder, and this weekend claimed there was still cause for concern.

''It really is a scandal what is happening here,'' said Dick Johnson, marketing services director for P & G. ''Unilever must be conscious of the downside of what they have done. They have reduced the level of the manganese accelerator by over three-quarters, but the consumer has no idea which product is which.'' New market-share figures from research group Neilson show that British sales of Persil Power have slowed in recent weeks, falling from a peak in June of five per cent of all powders sold to 3.4 per cent in early July. The fall is partly due to Unilever scaling back its own promotion, but sales have also been hit by a rash of bad publicity. The Sun ran stories last week about clothes allegedly ruined by the powder, including the memorable headline ''Shorts eaten''.