Cricketing stars Shane Warne and Graham Gooch might be remembered for the spin they put on their bowling, but according to the Advertising Standards Agency, there was a bit too much spin in their adverts for the Advanced Hair Studio.
National adverts for the clinic were branded misleading after Warne claimed, “I stopped worring about my hair when I heeded the Warne-ing signs and saw Advanced Hair Studio”. Despite the fabulousness of the pun, The ASA launched an investigation when they received a complaint that the advert was misleading in its claims that the system used by the cricketers, AHS-FP treatment, could stop hair falling out or even cause it to grow back.
The adverts showed four different photos of Gooch’s scalp before and after the treatment, which involves a hair-replacement process called strand-by-strand.
The ASA concluded that Advanced Hair Studio was only entitled to claim that the system had a ‘cosmetic effect’, whereas the wording of the advert implied a physiological effect. The adverts can no longer appear in their current format.
The chairman of Advanced Hair Studios, Carl Howell, said that the decision was unfair and that the company had asked the Committee on Advertising Practice for advice on the advert’s wording. He was especially critical that the process of investigating the advert had taken two years and that despite an decision in their favour in October, this was overturned without ‘any new arguments’ having been presented to them.