• USA Today, Monday, October 4, 2010 10:53 AM

POM Wonderful is launching three sensual TV spots today that suggest that pomegranates are natural aphrodisiacs. One spot shows Eve, covered only by a strategically slithering snake, holding a pomegranate to tempt Adam. Another suggests that Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, introduced the pomegranate to the island of Cyprus as an love potion.

"Does eating pomegranates really improve one's sex life?" Bruce Horovitz asks Lynda Resnick, the billionaire co-owner of the brand along with her husband, Stewart. "I certainly believe it does," she replies. Her father, 92, and mother, 87, drink POM juice, she says -- thankfully without going into any further detail.

"It sounds to me like they're trying to change the subject [from the Federal Trade Commission lawsuit]," says Ivan Preston, ad professor emeritus at University of Wisconsin. Last week, the FTC charged POM with running deceptive advertising. "They believe we are making disease claims, but we're not," Resnick tells Horovitz. "We're making health claims."

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