Advertising watchdog calls out PlantPaper’s dirty talk
With lowbrow humor, cuss words and movie stars, PlantPaper took risks for years in advertising its bamboo toilet paper. Now, the company is softening its message under pressure from an ad industry watchdog.
On Nov. 3, the National Advertising Division (NAD) warned PlantPaper to discontinue ads that made dramatic claims about competitors’ health and environmental impacts. The organization sided with the traditional paper products industry after months of deliberation.
The development reflects risks brands take in using a toxic-free, eco-friendly message to set themselves apart from longtime players. It also raises questions about how companies manage viral content on social media.
“There are lots of consumer class actions happening around “clean” and “better for you” type claims,” said attorney Katie Bond, a partner at Keller and Heckman in Washington, D.C. “And at the NAD, we’re seeing, over and over, established consumer brands challenge advertising by those new market entrants offering products intended to be better for people or better for the planet.”
Complaint and response
The American Forest and Paper Association, whose members include Kimberly-Clark, Procter and Gamble and Georgia-Pacific, filed the challenge about health and environmental claims with the NAD on May 16.
PlantPaper had disparaged “conventional tree paper” products by describing them as containing toxic chemicals, according to the paper industry group. The NAD ultimately agreed, specifically calling out a social media ad starring Alicia Silverstone.
“Recent studies found big toilet paper brands contain forever chemicals, PFAS,” the actor said from a bathroom stall. She was referring to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances that persist in the environment. “They never break down and they never leave your body. That’s because they use bleach and formaldehyde to process the tree pulp. This is very bad for your health, causing problems like hemorrhoids, UTIs, chronic inflammation, vulvovaginitis.”
The pulp and paper industry also challenged PlantPaper for misleading with a message that its bamboo products were less environmentally destructive than paper ones. In response, the NAD recommended that PlantPaper stop casting tree-based options as more destructive than its bamboo goods.
PlantPaper agreed to discontinue the contested messages. However, the company is allowed to highlight the unbleached, no-PFAS and formaldehyde-free nature of its products, according to the NAD.
Despite complying, PlantPaper Co-founder Lee Reitelman expressed disappointment in the outcomes of the process. “We stand by all of our claims,” he said. “We provided extensive research to back those claims, and the NAD acknowledged and validated much of this research in its official decision.”
The price
If PlantPaper had refused to follow the NAD’s guidance, the pulp industry’s complaint could have ultimately led to a filing with the Federal Trade Commission or state district attorneys focused on green marketing, according to Bond.
“Companies should actively monitor their advertising because they are responsible for all claims made through third-party content like influencer posts,” said William Frazier, an attorney with the NAD.
The self-regulatory body, which reviews accuracy in advertising, is part of BBB National Programs (not to be confused with the Better Business Bureau). It has made several decisions encouraging advertisers to ask influencers with whom they have a business relationship to remove certain content, Frazier added.
Once a video goes viral, however, it is difficult to scrub away. For now, the Silverstone spot remains on Facebook and Instagram, the main channels PlantPaper had used for advertising.
The implications
New companies with limited resources commonly push the envelope on advertising in the beginning, according to attorney Bond.
“The trick is to pivot, once challenged, to make claims align better with existing regulatory guidance and case law — all while not losing the zing of the original advertising,” she said. “Companies like PlantPaper that have already done significant testing on their product tend to manage that pivot just fine.”
Reitelman of PlantPaper, based in New York, urged other brands “to be true to your own values, and honor your customers’ intelligence.”
“Ha-ha, sounds like traditional TP brands got fed up with bamboo brands talking sh–,” said Luca Aldag, a standup-comic and founder of new bamboo toilet paper label Potty Mouth in Los Angeles. “Luckily, I haven’t released any ads yet that make these type of claims.”
Jamie Hamill, Ogilvy’s consulting director in New York, emphasized that brands making sustainability claims must substantiate them scientifically based on a full product lifecycle assessment, “and presented through fair, meaningful comparisons. If brands get this approach wrong, they risk regulatory fines, wasted marketing spend and worst of all, irreparable damage to consumer trust. Yet if they get it right, they can reframe the standards for their category altogether.”
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