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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. Photo: SCMP Pictures

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.

The advertisement claimed Crest could whiten teeth in just one day. Photo: Bloomberg
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.

“If the publicised effects of consumer goods are falsified in advertisements, then there must be penalties according to the law,” Miao said.

P&G, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has operations in 70 countries including China, with US$83 billion of sales in its 2014 fiscal year, according to its website, which says it has “one of the strongest portfolios of trusted, quality, leadership brands”.

In February, mainland authorities fined US mobile chipmaker Qualcomm 6.09 billion yuan for violating anti-trust laws. Last year, the central government fined British drug giant GlaxoSmithKline 3 billion yuan for bribery and jailed some of its former executives.

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