Alpecin shampoo seems to have taken the market by storm with a reputation as beneficial for hair loss. Does their latest TV advertisement cast more doubt on that reputation.
Dr Wolf
The original Dr Wolf was a German pharmacist who set up a factory to produce health related products, mostly nutritional. Among his product set though was a pungent hair tonic containing caffeine. The factory was blown up by the British during the war and rebuilt by his son, also Dr Wolf – bear in mind that anyone with a university education in Germany can and usually do call themselves Doctor.
These days the business is thriving, not least on the basis of the sales of Alpecin, they tell us that although much has been done to improve the smell the actual tonic remains faithful to the original Dr Wolf’s recipe. We are happy to take that at face value, the active ingredient was and is caffeine.
Alpecin Shampoo
It came to our attention again with a new version of their TV advert in the UK. Previously a German Tour de France type cycling team were their celebrity partners and the advert featured a rousing, if you like, team talk from the captain to his team-mates on the necessity of fighting for your hair.
The latest advert simplifies the message and takes away the awkward visual of men in lycra pretending to get worked up about a shampoo. The new version is almost devoid of visuals, instead a voice asks a couple of simple questions; Are you a man? and Do you have hair? These are followed with the vague call to action of Fight for your hair. Neither on the packaging or in the advert is their ever any suggestion that this is a hair loss product… and for good reason we suspect.
Odd that hair loss gets no mention on TV when you consider how prominent it is on their website. There you will find details of studies conducted that claim to evidence hair regrowth… along with a host of other improvements.
HIS Hair Clinic
We know that much more was made about the benefits of Alpecin for hair loss in the early days of its marketing here, they had a hair loss suffix to their website URL a decade ago which is not there now. Could it be that the stringent regulations around TV advertising would challenge the veracity of their claims?
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