As reported by the Pioneer Press at TwinCities.com.

The "electrified water" touted by Tennant Co. for its industrial-sized floor scrubbers has charged up the company's competitors, who want Tennant to come clean about claims of its effectiveness.

Tennant, the Golden Valley-based maker of janitorial floor cleaners used in offices and gymnasiums around the world, stands by its ec-H2O process, and customers are still buying it.

But competitors in Europe aren't pleased with the company's claims about the technology -- a feud that has led to legal or regulatory decisions, mostly against Tennant, in three countries , with a fourth set to weigh in.

A court decision out of Germany in June was the latest critique of Tennant's ads. It resulted in a partial victory for competitor Alfred Karcher & Co.

Tennant plans to appeal that ruling. It also acknowledges -- and competitors have noticed -- that it has watered down some of its claims, though not necessarily, it says, as a result of the challenges.

"Just like tap water, ec-H2O reaches its limits when tackling very stubborn dirt," Markus Asch, a Karcher manager, said after a 2012 decision against Tennant by a British advertising board.

Tennant would love to put all the controversy behind it, Chris Killingstad, Tennant's CEO, said in a July conference call with analysts. He called the ongoing litigation a distraction. "But at the same time, we need to figure out the best way to protect our reputation and the reputation of ec-H2O," he said.

The roots of the dispute date back to 2008, when Tennant first equipped its scrubbers with ec-H2O. Tennant customers fill the ec-H2O-equipped floor scrubbers with tap water, and the water is then electrically charged by equipment inside the scrubber.

Through this electric activation, Tennant says, the water is converted into an environmentally clean cleaning agent, and the company has claimed previously that the water then acts like a detergent.

Those claims caught the attention of some key Tennant competitors,including Karcher and Nilfisk-Advance, another European firm that said the wording in Tennant's advertising was all wet.

The June decision from the regional court in Stuttgart, Germany, called several of Tennant's advertisements about its ec-H2O technology "misleading." That included claims that the ec-H2O process "activates water to perform like a powerful detergent," and that it "makes its own powerful cleaner."

A spokesman for Karcher called the ruling "a decisive step."

Tennant shot back in a news release, saying the court decision was based on two "seriously flawed" laboratory bench tests.

"There is no standardized test for cleaning in our industry, and that's why real-world testing by our customers is what matters," Killingstad told analysts on the conference call.

But the German decision, which required Tennant to change its advertising, was only the latest result of challenges from competitors. Its ads have been contested in the United States and the United Kingdom, and Tennant was called out in each of those cases for its advertising claims.

MIXED RULINGS
The first challenge came from Nilfisk-Advance, a Denmark-based competitor that happens to have its U.S. offices and a manufacturing facility in Plymouth, about eight miles from Tennant's headquarters. In 2010, Nilfisk-Advance hired two outside firms to test Tennant's claims. It said the test showed Tennant's electrically activated water didn't clean any better than tap water.

In 2012, Tennant faced more scrutiny when Karcher brought a case to the British Advertising Standards Authority.

Karcher questioned the Tennant claims that the ec-H2O process "converts water into a superior cleaning solution" and "reduced costs and environmental damage caused by the use of detergents."

The British authority upheld Karcher's first claim about the water being converted, calling it "misleading." But it didn't uphold the second complaint about Tennant's environmental claims, saying that an expert found that the ec-H2O's environmental impact was less than what would be left behind by a chemical-based floor cleaner.

Also in 2012, Nilfisk-Advance brought a claim to the National Advertising Division of the Better Business Bureau in the U.S., asking that Tennant be told to discontinue some of its ec-H20 claims. The BBB advertising division found that Tennant's claims weren't adequately supported by the evidence in comparative tests. The division recommended that Tennant's claims be discontinued, which is all it has the power to do.

The BBB's process doesn't allow either party to issue news releases after it makes recommendations. Nilfisk-Advance did release a statement, though, and was later called out by the BBB, which noted that Nilfisk had violated procedures.

WHAT IS 'CLEAN'?
Both the decision of the BBB's advertising division and the British authority were nonbinding, as these are self-regulating agencies.

Next up will be a decision by a Belgium court, which "kind of wanted to wait until the German court ruling," CEO Killingstad told analysts. But Tennant has the opportunity to submit additional information to the Belgium courts, "so it's not a foregone conclusion that they will come to the same decision as the German courts," he said.

Beyond the challenges from competitors and the piecemeal decisions in various countries, there's hope in Golden Valley that the conflicts will be washed away.

Since last year's decision by the National Advertising Division in the U.S., Tennant's "newly minted ads are less exaggerated," said Jeff Barna, president and general manager of Nilfisk-Advance U.S., in Plymouth. "I don't think they've publicly rescinded anything they've said."

He added: "Being told electrified water is better than a deep clean with detergent is really where the rub is in this whole thing."

Barna is under the impression that Tennant has "softened" its advertising language in its global markets, but it's unclear what Tennant's customers know about the disputed language.

"The interesting thing about our business," Barna said, "is there isn't a set standard of 'clean.' " That puts pressure on companies to be accurate and conservative about the claims they make for their products, he added.

Judging by sales, the disputes over advertising haven't shown signs of hurting ec-H2O's popularity in the marketplace. Tennant noted recently that it's pleased with customer demand for its new T12 rider scrubber, introduced earlier this year. About 63 percent of the T12s sold in the second quarter of 2013 were equipped with ec-H2O.

"That's a strong endorsement of this disruptive technology," Killingstad told analysts.

The company gets 64 percent of its revenue from the Americas. Also, Tennants' second-quarter results beat analysts' estimates both for sales and earnings. Year-to-date, Tennant's stock is up almost 16 percent.

The various challenges in the United Kingdom and in the U.S. didn't lead to changes in Tennant's advertising -- at least not directly. Over the five years that ec-H2O has been on the market, Tennant's marketing language has changed "in the normal course of doing business," said Kathryn Lovik, a Tennant spokeswoman. The changes haven't been "for a lack of confidence or a change in confidence in the technology," she said.

Recent Tennant ads have done away with the language that says ec-H2O makes water "perform like a powerful detergent."

In the July conference call with stock analysts, Tennant repeated a claim that's on its website. The carefully worded statement said that Tennant's ec-H2O technology "converts water into an innovative cleaning solution that cleans effectively, saves money, improves safety and reduces environmental impact compared to daily cleaning floor chemicals."

Whether that wording rinses away the controversy remains to be seen.

CLEANING UP
Here's a comparison of three leading floor-scrubbing and cleaning products companies.

Tennant Co.
Based: Golden Valley
Annual revenue: $739 million (2012)
Minnesota presence: 800 employees in Golden Valley. 2,816 total employees.

Nilfisk-Advance
Based: Denmark
Annual revenue: $1.2 billion
Minnesota presence: Offices and a manufacturing plant in Plymouth, which together employ 350 people; 5,200 total employees worldwide.

Alfred Karcher & Co.
Based: Winnenden, Germany
Annual revenue: $1.9 billion
Employees worldwide: 6,590
Source: Individual companies