Rimmel London guarantees their customers will "Get the London look" but one thing it can't promise them? An "unstoppable" mascara.
A new commercial for the brand's "Scandaleyes Reloaded" mascara has been pulled off the air after Britain's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled the ad was "misleading."
Cara Delevingne poses as she and Rimmel celebrate their new partnership and launch the new Scandaleyes Reloaded Mascara on Nov. 9, 2016, in London, England. (Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Rimmel)
The ad, which features supermodel Cara Delevingne running around London à la "Homeland's" Carrie Mathison, states that their "clump-free" mascara has "extreme volume" and "extreme wear," however a complaint (yep, there was just one) said the commercial "exaggerated the likely effects of the product," therefore misleading customers. The ASA declared that the ad must not appear again in "its present form."
Check out the ad below:
And Delevingne didn't get those full lashes solely from her Rimmel mascara — according to the BBC, the model had also been given lash inserts and had some of her lashes re-drawn in post-production.
Rimmel's parent company Coty UK told the ASA that the ad accurately represented the mascara, and that Delevingne's lashes looked "long and full" before they re-drew them (a common practice in advertising) in post-production. They also noted that the re-drawing didn't lengthen or thicken the look of the lashes.
Coty also claimed that the lash inserts were used "only to fill in gaps and to create a uniform lash line," which was "in accordance with industry practice."
“We noted COTY’s assertion that the post-production techniques used were not intended to lengthen the model’s eyelashes," read the ASA's ruling. "However, we considered that they did appear to be longer in the after photo. While it was not clear whether this was due to the lash inserts or the ‘re-drawing’ of some lashes in post-production, or both, we considered that the overall effect was longer lashes with more volume.”
According to WWD, Rimmel says it had worked closely with the ASA since the complaint was made in December and that it would not air the commercial again.
While the U.K. generally has stricter advertising guidelines than North America, it will be interesting to see if this ruling, and others like it, will have any effect on beauty and fashion ads across the pond.