The massage chair that advertised the ‘depth of wood’ turned out to be veneer plywood.

Ceragem, a medical device company that advertised its massage chairs as if they were made of solid wood, was fined 128 million won and ordered to make corrections by the Fair Trade Commission, even though it used wood plywood as the material.

The Fair Trade Commission announced on the 24th that it had imposed sanctions on Ceragem for allegedly violating the Labeling and Advertising Act.

According to the Fair Trade Commission, Ceragem used plywood bonded with black walnut veneer from California, USA, on the wooden part of the ‘Ceragem Pouse Decore’ massage chair. Veneer is a wood material that has been thinly carved to a thickness of about 0.2 to 2 mm for the purpose of finishing the surface of furniture.

Nevertheless, Ceragem used phrases such as ‘depth of wood’, ‘value of wood’, and ‘use of premium wood black walnut’ in TV commercials. It is expressed as if the original wood was used.

Ceragem was found to have generated sales of approximately 9.8 billion won through sales of this product over the past year from 2022 to 2023.

In some advertisements, Ceragem wrote in small letters, ‘Layered (plywood) black walnut material using natural wood.’ The company is known to have claimed that it was not a false advertisement based on these factors.

However, the font size of clue phrases such as ‘layered’ was one-half to one-third of the font size of ‘depth of wood’. Additionally, phrases such as ‘depth of wood’ and ‘value of wood’ were in the center of the advertisement screen, but the clue text was in the bottom right.

The Fair Trade Commission judged that Ceragem used the term ‘layered’, which is unfamiliar to consumers, and emphasized ‘natural wood’ and ‘black walnut’ within the phrase, which actually aggravated consumer misunderstanding.

An official from the Fair Trade Commission said, “This measure is significant in that it detected and severely sanctioned unfair advertising practices in a market with large information asymmetry at a time when consumer interest in home healthcare appliances such as massage chairs is increasing.” He said.

Regarding this, Seraphim said, “We took preemptive (corrective) measures before receiving the Fair Trade Commission’s disposition, and have now completed all corrections to the expressions pointed out. We will do our best to prevent the same thing from happening again in the future.”