Toothpaste maker Crest fined 6 million yuan for faking white teeth in advert

Crest, the toothpaste brand of US consumer giant P&G, has been fined 6.03 million yuan (HK$7.46 million) by mainland authorities in the biggest fine imposed for false advertising on the mainland.

It was fined for a television advertisement featuring Taiwanese actress and singer Dee Hsu, nicknamed “Little S”, which claimed that teeth could be whitened in just one day using Crest toothpaste, the Shanghai Administration for Industry and Commerce said on its Weibo microblog.

“The representative’s whitened teeth was not actually due to the advertised toothpaste, but created by computer effects,” it said.

Crest said on its official Chinese microblog on Tuesday the advertisement had been pulled in the middle of last year. It did not say whether it planned to contest the fine.

State news agency Xinhua said it was the biggest fine imposed for false advertising on the mainland.

The fine was determined as a fraction of advertising fees, Miao Jun, chief of advertising at the Shanghai Administration for Industry and Commerce, told Xinhua.