
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, September 19, 1995                   TAG: 9509190035
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COMPANY TAKES FOE'S ADS TO COURT

COMPARING PRODUCTS in advertisements is allowed. The claims must be provable, though, and C.B. Fleet of Lynchburg says its competitor's ads just aren't true.

The two largest makers of disposable douches took their claims to court Monday, asking a Roanoke judge to decide if one of them is guilty of making false claims in national advertising.

C.B. Fleet Co. Inc. of Lynchburg, maker of the Summer's Eve line, has taken issue with newspaper and television advertisements - first seen nationwide last month - in which SmithKline Beecham PLC said its Massengill brand products outperform Fleet's.

Fleet asserts the promotions hurt its sales and profits. Company lawyers began Monday trying to convince U.S. District Court Judge James Turk to punish SmithKline, a British company whose U.S. unit is based in Philadelphia. Testimony is to conclude today.

Fleet wants SmithKline prohibited from using the advertisements again. Fleet also wants SmithKline to run a new round of advertisements in which the company would take back its claim.

Fleet wants every last "plate, mold ... [and] film" from the campaign destroyed and at least $500,000 in damages.

SmithKline defended the advertisements and maintained it had a right to make the claims. It has refused Fleet's demand it drop the campaign.

Since 1979, the Federal Trade Commission has encouraged advertising that compares products, as long as claims can be proven, said Joel Winston of the FTC's advertising practices division.

Both companies claim to have a superior line of products and test results to prove it.

Fleet said in court papers that it invented the disposable douche in 1971. Since that time, it has sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of its Summer's Eve products and spent tens of millions on advertising.

Without doing sufficient testing, Fleet alleged, SmithKline jeopardized the future success of the Summer's Eve line with a bogus ad campaign that involved coupons in newspapers Aug. 13 and television commercial that aired Aug. 15 on NBC and Aug. 23 on ABC. The promotions, Fleet said, amounted to "product disparagement" under state law and violated federal bans on false advertising.

SmithKline said in court papers that the advertisements touted a nozzle redesign for its Massengill douches that the company spent several million dollars to engineer. SmithKline said the new nozzle wasn't as good as its original one, but the new system "cleaned better than Summer's Eve."

"Fleet is understandably unhappy with SB's claims," SmithKline said.

SmithKline said that it holds a 50-percent share of the douche market, more than any competitor and nearly twice Fleet's share of 27 percent. It said it launched the redesign and has sought to patent the change because smaller competitors copying its product were able to sell it at a lower price because they had less overhead.

by CNB