By Brendan Browne
The Associated Press

Competitors of Procter & Gamble Co. have taken their advertising battle off the airwaves and into court, claiming the consumer products giant has become too aggressive in ads by taking unfair jabs at their products.

P&G, the second largest spender on advertising, says it is doing nothing new and that the court battles are more about rivals looking to fight its recent strong sales and earnings, which rose 23 percent last quarter.

P&G appeared twice in court last month to defend ads, including one in which it took a shot at the quality of Kimberly-Clark's Huggies Pull-Ups.

An industry watchdog group recommended three times this year and five last year that the company change other ads. In comparison, the group, the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, asked P&G to make changes three times between 1999 and 2001.

"It does look indeed that they've gotten more antagonistic with respect to brand competition," said David Keran, an analyst who follows P&G at Argus Research. "It is not only because the company is doing well that those peers are complaining. In fact, the ads are of a different quality."

NAD said it had not asked the companies upset with P&G ads to alter their advertising over the last two years.

"When P&G was brand building instead of competing with brand bashing, they were more responsible," said Burt Flickinger, managing partner at the consulting company Strategic Resource Group.

He said the Cincinnati-based company is trying to regain the large market shares it had when he worked there as an executive in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Last month, a federal judge in Wisconsin ordered the company to temporarily stop running a television ad of a child holding a Huggies Pull-Ups.

The image and the voiceover implied that the Pull-Ups had fallen off the child and can easily do so, Kimberly-Clark spokesman David Dickson said.

P&G changed the voiceover but not the image. The judge rejected Kimberly-Clark's claims that it was still unfair and allowed the changed ad on television. Kimberly-Clark says it will appeal.

P&G was ordered to pay Playtex $2.96 million and to stop using ads a federal court said falsely claimed the superiority of P&G's Tampax Pearl Tampon to Playtex's tampon. P&G will appeal.

Still, if P&G has produced more ads that have been questioned, it may be because an increase in product development and testing has allowed it to make new claims, said Jim Guthrie, president of the National Advertising Review Council, which sets the policies NAD enforces.

P&G, with more than $2 billion in annual ad spending, is second only to General Motors, according to industry rankings.

P&G spokeswoman Linda Ulrey said the company produces countless ads and products and though it occasionally may have to make minor changes to them, market testing can back up its claims.

"What you might be seeing is our brands are winning in a very competitive market place and our competition is reacting to our market success," Ulrey said.

Although recommendations from NAD are not legally binding, companies rarely disobey them, to protect their reputations, analysts said.

P&G changed a ThermaCare Heat Wrap ad that the group said contained a claim it could not back up and another for its Crest Whitestrips that NAD said "falsely denigrated Colgate's Simply White product."

NAD also recommended altering a commercial for P&G's Always Thin Ultra Pad.

Competitors say P&G is risking its credibility.

"It is surprising that a company with P&G's reputation would be saying that successful challenges to their advertising in recent months is somehow related to business success," said Martin Petersen, a Playtex spokesman. "Consumers must be able to trust a manufacturer's claims."

Still, it is difficult to prove that a company is making false claims that eat into market share, said Jack Trout, president of the Trout & Partners marketing strategy company. And with P&G's large capital, it can risk losing a few court battles.

"In essence it's all about market share. How do you take business from your competitor? All's fair in love, war and marketing," he said.

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On the Net:

Procter & Gamble : http://www.pg.com/

Kimberly-Clark: http://www.kimberly-clark.com/

Playtex: http://www.playtex.com/

Colgate: http://www.colgate.com/

NAD: http://www.nadreview.org/

National Advertising Review Council: http://www.narcpartners.org/