Fussy, the refillable deodorant startup brand, has apologized to British consumer goods producer Unilever and its chief executive Alan Jope following its rollout of online ads comparing the two companies. In the apology, Fussy admitted that some could have found the ads to be “misleading.”
The plant-based deodorant brand, founded by former Grey creatives Matt Kennedy and Eddie Fisher in 2020, has retracted some claims made in three ads comparing Fussy to rival Unilever products such as Sure and Lynx.
The claims were retracted after speaking to Unilever, leading to chief executive Kennedy posting an apology online and sending Jope a potted plant placed on the doorstep of Unilever House with a note saying “Our bad.”
A longer apology letter addressed directly to Jope was posted on LinkedIn.
“We posted some adverts online comparing our products to yours. That’s not on. We take back everything we said in them,” the letter read. “Also, we’re sorry if anyone out there found these adverts misleading or deceitful in any way. This was not what we set out to do. And it’s not what we’re about.”
It added: “If we had a marketing department we’d fire them. But as it’s just us, we’ll have to make sure we don’t slip up again.”
The brand has also posted a video featuring Kennedy outlining the plan behind “Operation Olive Branch” and also shows the delivery of the plant “for Alan” and Unilever’s security refusing to accept it; the plant was left sitting on the doorstep.
Jope did respond to the letter being posted on LinkedIn to say, “Thanks Matt Kennedy for the olive tree. We’ll take good care of it. And don’t sweat it.”
“We mucked up. Simple as that. We ran online adverts comparing Unilever’s products to our all-natural, single-use, plastic-free deodorant. And we made claims that could be viewed as more of an opinion than as a fact. This was wrong,” Kennedy admitted.
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