Ontel Products Corp. (Pink Armor Nail Gel)

Ontel Products Corp. (Ontel) (defendant) was the manufacturer of a fingernail product called Pink Armor nail gel (the nail gel). Ontel relied upon customer endorsements and testimonials, rather than actual product testing, as support for the accuracy of before-and-after photographs used in its advertisements. These photographs showed a 1.5-inch growth of fingernails within a month after application of the nail gel. Normal fingernails typically grew at a rate of 1.5 inches per year. The before photographs showed a woman’s fingernails that were short, broken, and diseased. The after photographs showed a woman’s fingernails that were longer, perfectly manicured, polished, and pink. Coty Inc. (plaintiff), a competing manufacturer of fingernail-care products, filed a claim against Ontel with the Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division (NAD), a self-regulatory organization created to prevent false and deceptive advertising. Coty challenged Ontel’s product-performance claims advertising the nail gel in broadcasts, in print, on the internet, and on product packaging. Coty argued that the before-and-after photographs were deceptive because they (1) drastically misrepresented the rate at which fingernails grew, (2) falsely represented how a consumer’s fingernails would look after using the product, and (3) falsely implied that the product would heal diseased fingernails. Ontel claimed that the nail-gel product packaging clearly stated that the before-and-after photographs were dramatizations and that the product-performance claims were recognizable by reasonable consumers as puffery or exaggeration. Coty argued that the evidence Ontel relied upon prior to disseminating the before-and-after photographs was anecdotal customer feedback that did not sufficiently substantiate the product-performance claims as accurate representations of the results that a reasonable consumer could expect to achieve.