uTelebrands Stops Marketing Amish Secret Furniture Polish After S.C. Johnson Challenges Ad Claimsr

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• You may remember Telebrands, the company that sells innovative products through a very distinctive style of advertising. You probably remember them very well, because we had a story just this morning about their settling a New Jersey lawsuit alleging violations of that state’s Consumer Fraud Act. The company also came to an agreement with competitor S.C. Johnson and Son, agreeing to pull ads for its Amish Secret Furniture Cleaner and stop making claims that standard furniture polish is bad for wood.

  The challenge came through the National Ad Division, the self-regulation body where companies can call shenanigans on each other’s advertising and trigger an impartial investigation. Here’s the commercial in question:

  Telebrands didn’t waste time defending its product or promising to change the commercial. Amish Secret has already vanished, with its website tossed down the memory hole and only available through the Internet Archive. (Warning: the commercial auto-plays.)

  It’s not that the product is bad, exactly, but it’s not a substitute for refinishing grimy old wood furniture. There’s no substitute for that. It’s easy to see how S.C. Johnson, makers of Pledge, didn’t appreciate commercials for Amish Secret airing that say things like:

  “Furniture polishes are a nasty, greasy mess, and over time attract dust like a magnet.”

  “Forget oily sprays. Amish Secret cleans layers of built-up wax, revealing a fresh, lasting shine without leaving a sticky, oily residue.”

  In their statement, advertiser Telebrands :

  believes that the advertising claims it makes regarding the Amish Secret Furniture Cleaner are truthful and accurate, but in the interest of expeditiously resolving the current challenge and for business reasons, it has voluntarily agreed to permanently discontinue the challenged claims in a timely manner.

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist