Hindustan Unilever Limited - Domex Floor Cleaner

Recommendation: Not Upheld | Medium: General Public

The ASCI had approached the advertiser (yourself) for its response in addressing the grievances of the complainant and forwarded the details of the complaint, verbatim, to the advertiser with a request to respond to the same. The advertiser was offered an opportunity to seek an Informal Resolution (IR) of the complaint and a telecon with the ASCI Secretariat to seek further guidance, which they did not avail but submitted their written response. The advertiser submitted a point-wise reply to the objections raised in the complaint. In response to the Complainant’s objection Domex# is proven to destroy Coronavirus** in just 60 seconds*, the Advertiser submitted that the claim is qualified by the following statements at the bottom: “#Domex Floor Cleaner contains Sodium Hypochlorite (min. 0.5% w/w measured as active chlorine). **SARS-COV-2 when used undiluted. *Based on lab tests. As stated in the qualifying statement, the product formulation contains Sodium Hypochlorite (min. 0.5% w/w measured as active chlorine), which has been recommended by the WHO and several international health organizations for disinfecting surfaces to protect against the 2020 novel coronavirus (SARS-COV-2).” In response to the other Objection raised by the complaint: “… cure process is also different. DOMEX is not a drug or medicine still they claim it kills Corona Virus” the Advertiser stated that “Domex Floor Cleaner is indeed a disinfectant, which is in turn classified as a ‘Drug’ under Section 3(b)(ii) of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act.” The Advertiser also provided the following documents as claim support data: 1) Copy of the Advertisement, 2) Storyboard, 3) Product Labels 4) 2 links to WHO and the CDC (USA) websites, which recommend the use of sodium hypochlorite for disinfection of surfaces, suspected to have the SARS-COV2 virus on them. 5) Copies of domestic expert endorsement of the the veracity of the aforementioned lab tests, 6) A copy of the approval of the Director (IEC), Government of Maharashtra, 7) Copy of excerpt from the relevant Government of India notifications, which include disinfectants within the definition of ‘Drug’ for the purpose of the Act. The complaint and the advertiser’s response with the claim support data were referred to an independent technical expert of ASCI. The expert’s opinion was shared with the advertiser for making any additional submissions. In response to the technical experts' opinion, the Advertiser sought for a meeting with the technical expert, which was arranged by the ASCI Secretariat through videoconference. 
An additional document - A copy of the Viral Efficacy Suspension Test result for the product from Microbac, USA was shared. Post meeting with the ASCI Secretariat and the technical expert, the Complainant’s and the Advertiser’s submissions were shared with the technical expert for his final opinion. Based on both the parties’ data, the technical expert submitted his final opinion for the Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) to consider. The CCC viewed the advertisement and considered the advertiser’s response as well as the opinion of the Technical expert presented at the meeting. The CCC opined that there was enough evidence provided by the Advertiser along with the expert’s opinion suggesting that the product was tested on a valid surrogate for affirmative results. Since the advertisement in question comes with a disclaimer that it was tested on a surrogate virus – “SARS CoV-2 jaise” and not the actual coronavirus, it was not considered to be misleading. The objection “Domex# is proven to destroy Coronavirus** in just 60 seconds*” was NOT UPHELD. The CCC carefully reviewed the document submitted in response to objection against claim DOMEX is not a drug or medicine still they claim it kills CoronaVirus and accepted the submission that Domex Floor Cleaner is “classified as a ‘Drug’ under Section 3(b)(ii) of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act”. Therefore, the objection to the above claim was NOT UPHELD.