US giant Procter & Gamble was fined a whooping 6.03 million yuan (US$962,660) for a commercial that hugely exaggerated the effect of its product.

Local regulator slapped the multinational giant with China’s biggest fine so far for the TV commercial that exaggerated the whitening effect of its tooth paste brand Crest. The company had roped in popular Taiwanese hostess Dee Hsu to promote the “double-effects whitening tooth paste.”

The whitening effect highlighted in the TV commercial was over-processed with a computer software and did not reveal the actual effect of the tooth paste, Miao Jun, director of the advertisement department of the Shanghai Administration of Industry and Commerce told Xinhua News Agency yesterday.