Popular moisturizer brands Nivea and Ponds have been in a legal fight for more than three years over multiple issues such as oil content, unfair market practices and hydration. They even battled for the colour blue!
Beiersdorf, a global skincare company and the manufacturer of Nivea creams, filed a case against Hindustan Unilever (which makes Ponds) in the Delhi High Court in 2021. It accused Ponds’ salespersons were engaged in unfair market practices at malls all over the city.
According to media reports, Beiersdorf AG told the court that Ponds’ sales representatives would apply NIVEA’s cream on one hand of a customer and Ponds on the other. Then they would ask the customer to see through a magnifying glass to demonstrate that NIVEA’s cream left more residue than Ponds’ super light gel.
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Ponds’ makers, however, said they were only using a generic blue tub without NIVEA’s branding. However, NIVEA makers claimed that such comparison was misleading and unfair. It also claimed that the unmarked blue tub looked similar to the tub in which NIVEA’ cream comes and it also had the same shade of blue.
Beiersdorf AG also claimed that Ponds was making “an inherently wrong comparison” between a “heavy cream” category of Nivea goods and a lighter cream/gel-based Ponds product, reports said.
In response, Hindustan Unilever argued that they utilized a generic “blue tub” without NIVEA branding. They also claimed that NIVEA did not have an exclusive right to the color blue.
Also Read: How a Woman Lost Rs 2 Crore LIC Claim After Husband Died of Heart Attack
What Delhi High Court Said?
The Delhi High Court has restrained HUL from advertising or carrying out marketing campaigns comparing Ponds creams to NIVEA products. The court concluded that Ponds’ marketing exercise was “prima facie misleading and disparaging”.
On the use of blue colour tub for marketing by Ponds’ salespersons, the High court didn’t accept HUL’s argument. It said that the objective behind the use of a blue tub in exactly the same distinctive colour was to make the customer draw association to NIVEA’s products.
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