Kao (Taiwan) Corporation's false advertising for its prize promotion regarding its concentrated washing powder "Yi-ch'ih-ling" [meaning "one spoon works."]

Chinese Taipei

Case:

Kao (Taiwan) Corporation's false advertising for its prize promotion regarding its concentrated washing powder "Yi-ch'ih-ling" [meaning "one spoon works."]

Key words:

prize promotion, false advertising

Reference:

The Fair Trade Commission Decision of December 24, 1997 (the 320th Commission Meeting); Dispositions (86) Kung Ch'u Tzu No. 208

Industry:

Detergents and Cleansing Agents Manufacturing Industry (2230)

Relevant Laws:

Article 21 of the Fair Trade Law

Summary:

1. Kao (Taiwan) Corporation [hereinafter "Kao"] from May to July 1997 sponsored a prize promotion in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of its Yi-ch'ih-ling product. A total of NT$100,000 would be given away over ten weeks to winners of the lucky draw. Kao advertised the promotion in major newspapers and stated that the deadline would be July 5. Nonetheless, on July 5, i.e., the last day the promotion was still effective, Kao's advertisements still stated that "with only two weeks left, what are you waiting for?" On July 12, when the promotion had already ended, Kao's advertisements stated "with only one week left, what are you waiting for?' Such statements obviously contradicted the deadline Kao had previously announced. In addition, the sizes of the words "with only ...week(s) left, what are you waiting for?" were much bigger than those of the words printed in the same advertisements "deadline: From today until July 5." As a result, readers of such advertisements could be easily misled. Kao's act in this regard constituted a violation of Article 21(1) of the Fair Trade Law.
   
   
2. Kao defended itself by claiming:

"the content of our advertisements that might mislead the consumers such as 'with only two weeks left, what are you waiting for?' and 'with only one week left, what are you waiting for?' was a result of the time lag between the date the activity took place and that of publication. In other words, there was a delay of two weeks between the two dates because the first draw occurred a week after the activity took place, whereas the list of winners, due to internal operations, was not published until the next week. We admit negligence in supervising the design of the advertisements, but we never intentionally cheated or misled consumers."

However, such statements did not change the fact that in its advertisements Kao made false, untrue or misleading representations or manifestations in connection with the prize promotion's length of time.

Summarized by Lee, Shu-hwa
Supervised by Pai, Yu-chuang

Appendix:
Kao (Taiwan) Corporation's Uniform Invoice Number: 38099093

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