Aloette Cosmetics Participates In ERSP Self-Regulatory Forum

New York, NY – June 6, 2005 – The Electronic Retailing Self-Regulation Program (“ERSP”), the electronic direct-response industry’s self-regulatory forum supervised by the National Advertising Review Council (“NARC”), announced that direct response marketer Aloette Cosmetics (“Aloette”) has provided a reasonable basis for its claims that its Perfect Lift Plus Anti-Aging Skin Care System has an efficacious affect on the appearance of skin communicated in its television advertising. Aloette also indicated that it was in the process of voluntarily discontinuing its claim of immediate results regarding the performance of the product and would modify claims that compare the product to surgical procedures. The truth and accuracy of the marketer’s claims came to the attention of ERSP from an anonymous consumer challenge.

In the inquiry, ERSP requested that the marketer provide substantiation for several core performance and establishment claims that were communicated in its advertising campaign for the Perfect Lift Plus System. The representative claims at issue included: establishment claims (i.e., “…clinically tested ingredients.”); general performance claims (i.e., “Look 15 years younger in just 10 minutes.”) and comparative claims (i.e., “This facelift is far beyond any face lift you ever had”).

In addition to commending Aloette for its voluntary action in revising many of the claims at issue, ERSP also determined that the testing on the individual ingredients was reliably conducted and provided a reasonable basis for core claims regarding the efficaciousness of the system. ERSP further noted that when a marketer claims that its product will confer “immediate” or “instant” results, it is reasonable for consumers to expect the product to work within a few minutes and that the evidence submitted by the marketer did not adequately support these performance claims.  Similarly, Aloette did not provide comparative data with respect to similar cosmetic products on the market and, as such, it was recommended that the marketer refrain from making unqualified superiority claims regarding the performance of its product. Lastly, ERSP suggested that Aloette be more specific in future advertising as to which component product (i.e., the Perfect Lift Plus Time Restore) was the subject of the clinical testing should it make express performance claims.