MINNEAPOLIS -- The National Advertising Division (NAD) of The Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc. recently ruled that Kalium Chemical, makers of Nature's Own and K-Life water softening products, must modify or discontinue advertising claims about its products because they are confusing and misleading to consumers.
Cargill Salt, makers of SuperSoft® and Diamond Crystal® Water Conditioning Products, filed the challenge with the NAD in late 1996 after Kalium ran advertising inaccurately claiming that sodium-based water conditioning products add salt to a household's water supply and falsely represented its potassium-based products as the healthier alternative to softening water.
"Consumers tend to think that salt is salt, when in fact there's a big difference between what you put on your dinner table and what you put in your water softener," said Mike Lane, marketing director of Cargill Salt. "Our responsibility as a manufacturer is to educate customers about the products we make and their proper use. Kalium's claims were incorrect and misleading."
Cargill Salt based its challenge on the household water conditioning process, which uses sodium chloride or potassium chloride to pull hard water ions out of a household's water supply. Both sodium and potassium chloride are salt products; however, neither is added to a household's water supply during the water conditioning process, as the Kalium ads claimed. Instead, sodium or potassium ions are exchanged for hardness ions as water passes through the water conditioning unit.
As a result of the NAD's ruling, Kalium has agreed to modify or discontinue its advertising claims.
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