Nurofen forced to pull pain specific products, claims it did not set out to mislead consumers
Nurofen has been forced to pull one of its major product lines after a court found it had engaged in misleading conduct, claiming its products where pain specific, when the products were in fact identical.
The leading pain brand was forced to concede to the Federal Court that it had mislead consumers and was ordered to remove the Nurofen Specific Pain products – covering back, period, migraine and tension headaches – from shelves within three months.
“Nurofen did not set out to mislead consumers,” said a Nurofen spokeswoman. “(We have) co-operated with the ACCC in relation to these proceedings and will fully comply with the court order made today”.
This is not the first time the pain relief brand, and its parent Reckitt Benckiser, has been reprimanded for its advertising with the Therapeutic Goods Administration forcing the withdrawal of an ad which claimed “targeted relief” back in 2013.
We all know Advertising can be a bit of a grey area but this really was taking the piss.
That’s gonna give the marketing team an aneurysm.
@Marketing Headache – I know just the thing to cure that
Whether or not the company is prosecuted will show us if the ACCC is effective or merely an expensive ornament.
And did the Period Pain one happen to cost more than the headache one?
… “Nurofen did not set out to mislead consumers,” said a Nurofen spokeswoman. …
One wonders if when the corp affairs director wrote or signed-off that “rebuttal” … one wonders if they were setting out to mislead themselves.
So you sold the same generic painkiller (available for pennies in own-brand packs) in differently “targeted” posh packaging for variable premium prices. And you didn’t set out to mislead consumers?
This is definitely a case of repetitional damage and credibility squandering made worse after the original dodgy dealing.
Try: “it’s a fair cop guv. It was the same stuff and we were just trying to make it relevant to people with specific conditions with packaging targeted at people with those sorts of pain. You know, like selling paint. We had to cover the cost of the different packaging so we charged a bit more. In hindsight, given what it has done to our cred, it may not have been such a good idea. Sorry about that.”
Of course their lawyers will be advising otherwise.
As for the ACCC being effective you have to ask why it has taken so long. The Chaser has highlighted this con in segments from memory as early as 2012 and also in 2014 and has been open knowledge for several years. Interesting though how any commercial network current affairs program retreated from such a juicy con job, multinational ripping off decent Australian citizens expose. The force is strong in Reckitt’s cheque book.
That and when they were Reckitt & Colman (spelling?) they used to sell the same mustard as English, German, French etc … Even though we all KNEW it was mixed in a big bucket in Hull … 🙂