ET Now, Malayala Manorama, Bajaj Auto among 279 ads under ASCI scanner

During the month of February 2020, ASCI investigated complaints against 279 advertisements, of which 101 advertisements were promptly withdrawn by the advertisers on receipt of communication from ASCI. The independent Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) of ASCI evaluated remaining 178 advertisements, of which complaints against 171 advertisements were upheld. Of these 171 ads, 77 belonged to the education sector, 59 belonged to the healthcare sector, 6 to real estate, 5 to visa/ immigration services, 5 to personal care, 4 to the food & beverages sector, and 15 were from the ‘others’ category.

ASCI continues to see advertisements featuring celebrities falling short of adhering to ’Guidelines for Celebrities in Advertising’. Amongst the various advertisements that were scrutinised, CCC pulled up a misleading advertisement of a ’gamified school education’ app claiming it to be the biggest scholarship exam, and promising prize money worth up to Rs 1 crore, featuring one of Bollywood’s legendary actor. An advertisement of herbal drops endorsed by a Bollywood celebrity made a misleading claim that it can save or protect from diseases by immunity enhancement. A fertility clinic was found to mislead their patients claiming it to be “India’s Largest and Most Successful IVF and Fertility Chain”, while co-promoting a movie with “IVF procedure mix up” theme, featuring four top Bollywood celebrities. Advertisement of a honey brand endorsed by an Olympic Badminton player made unsubstantiated claims like “Strengthen bones” and “Muscle redevelopment”.

A popular auto company, in a TV advertisement, depicted a pillion riding barber shaving the rider on a running motorcycle. It showed a dangerous act with disregard for safety and challenged safe driving requirements. The advertisement contravened ASCI’s Guidelines for Advertisements depicting Automotive Vehicles.

ASCI also saw several Real estate companies making superlative/ leadership claims. A few of them were specially focused providing senior living communities and townships. One well-known brand while promoting their township project for seniors, made unsubstantiated claim of being “India’s Largest Senior-Living Community”.

ASCI also processed complaints against several advertisements which guaranteed “100% Visa”, “100% Visa Success Ratio”, “No.1 Visa Company” either for work or education in countries which had stringent documentation mandates. Such misleading claims were likely to lead to widespread disappointment in the minds of students and job seekers.

The CCC upheld multiple complaints pertaining to advertisements from healthcare as well as educational sector, wherein the advertisers claimed to have leadership positions or boasted about the awards they have won, but failed to substantiate it with authentic and credible supporting ranking data or awards data. Shweta Purandare, ASCI Secretary General, said, “Our guidelines for Usage of Awards/ Rankings in Advertisements that were introduced in January 2020, are proving to be a timely step in the right direction. We are educating the advertisers that self-sponsored awards and ranking are on thin ice and will not hold any more. They need to know the rigor expected in claim substantiation when referring to awards and rankings in their advertisements.”

Education: 77 advertisements complained against

Suo Motu Surveillance by ASCI (77 advertisements)

Healthcare: 59 advertisements complained against

Suo Motu Surveillance by ASCI (59 advertisements)

Real Estate: 6 advertisements complained against

Suo Motu Surveillance by ASCI (6 advertisements)

Visa/ Immigration Services: 5 advertisements complained against

Suo Motu Surveillance by ASCI (5 advertisements)

Personal Care: 5 advertisements complained against

Suo Motu Surveillance by ASCI (5 advertisements)

Food & Beverages: 4 advertisements complained against

Suo Motu Surveillance by ASCI (4 advertisements)

Others: 15 advertisements complained against

Direct Complaints (6 advertisements)
Suo Motu Surveillance by ASCI (9 advertisements)

Direct Complaints

The ads given below were complained against by the general public or by industry members. Of the 25 advertisements complained against, 12 advertisements were promptly withdrawn by the advertiser on receiving communication from ASCI. For the remaining 13 advertisements, complaints against six advertisements were upheld by the CCC. All the six advertisements belonged to the ‘others’ category. Seven advertisements were not considered to be objectionable or in contravention of the ASCI code.

Others

Times Network Ltd (ET Now): The television and social media advertisements claiming "ET Now 75% CNBC TV18 25%”, were misleading as well as it was in contravention of the BARC Guidelines. As per BARC Guidelines, viewership may only be shown in impressions ‘000s or viewing minutes. Use of rating percentage is not permitted. The advertiser did not include the budget day in making claims regarding budget week as they submitted only Monday to Friday data whereas the Budget was presented on the following Saturday. Furthermore, the complainant presented BARC reporting weeks 4 and 5 data for the same target audience to disprove the leadership claim. The other claims "ET Now #1 in Budget Week" and “ET Now# 1 During Year's Most Important Week" were also considered to misleading. The disclaimers in the TV promo were in contravention of the ASCI Guidelines on Disclaimers for their placement not being in sync with the claims and their hold duration was inadequate. The TV promos as well as Social Media promotions were in contravention of BARC advisory as well as ASCI Guidelines on Disclaimers.
Malayala Manorama Company Ltd (Manoramaonline): The Ad-Emailer’s claim, “The No. 1 Malayalam News site”, was not substantiated. The CCC observed that the advertiser conveys in the advertisement that they have about 164 million total views in Malayalam alone as compared to their closest competition who has about 131 million total views in Malayalam and other languages. The advertisement indicates the source of the claim – Comscore MMX Multi-Platform Key Measures, Total Views, October 2019, India. The CCC noted that the advertiser has used an arithmetic manipulation to come up with a superiority figure which is a false representation. Further, there is no evidence provided by the advertiser to substantiate ComScore as the source of support.
Malayala Manorama Company Ltd (Manoramaonline): The Ad-Emailer’s leadership claim of being “The No. 1 Malayalam News site” was misleading. The CCC observed that the advertiser positions itself as the “No. 1 Malayalam News site” and qualifies this with a disclaimer – “Comscore MMX Multi-Platform Key Measures, Total Views, October 2019”. The CCC noted that the advertisement claims, in the headline, that “164 is greater than 131”. While the response to the complaint explains that the 131 million views number has been arrived at by “filtering out non-Malayalam sites” from the Total Views received by the top level domains, viz. Manoramaonline.com and Asianetnews.com, the actual text in the emailer claims that 131 million is the count of views for “Malayalam and other languages”. This is a false statement, even by the table provided by the advertiser. The advertisement unfairly denigrated competition.
Bajaj Auto Ltd (Bajaj Platina 110 H Gear): The television and YouTube advertisement’s visual of the pillion rider shaving beard of the bike rider using a shaving blade while the bike is in motion, shows a dangerous act and manifests a disregard for safety. The advertisement carries a disclaimer to mention “Actions shown are a creative expression to relate with features of Bajaj Platina and are performed under supervision. Please do not imitate”. The CCC did not agree with the advertiser’s contention that the act/stunt shown in the advertisement is a hyperbole, as any person could try doing the act as shown nor did they consider this to be a professional stunt. If replicated in real life would be very unsafe. The advertisement also challenges safe driving requirements. In the advertisement, the direction of left view mirror is placed in dangerous manner as the rider can see only his reflection and not condition of traffic behind him that he is supposed to be observant about.
Ultratech Cement Ltd (Ultra Tech Cement): The website advertisement’s claim, “Desh ka No.1 Cement”, was inadequately substantiated. In the advertisement there were no disclaimers to indicate the source and date of the claim. The CCC did not agree with the advertiser’s contention that their claim is “widely known to public as various news article and publications in the last two years have been quoting them to be the ‘Largest Cement Player in India’/Largest/Biggest Cement Manufacturer in India’ and which is therefore a known fact to the consumer. As per CCC, a lay consumer is not expected to understand the entire market situation nor is expected to source the data of various players for claim validation. For the data submitted by the advertiser, instead of a self-certificate, the advertiser should ideally submit an independent third-party verification report or a CA certificate and provide the exact basis for making a leadership claim (Sales volume or manufacturing capacity / output or market share by value, etc.). Media coverage based on press releases issued by the company was not considered as primary claim support data. The CCC concluded that superlative claim is misleading by omission of the mention of the basis for arriving the leadership claim. The source for the claim, especially for comparison versus competition, was not indicated in the advertisement. The advertisement also contravened ASCI Guidelines for Disclaimers in Advertising.
Lakshmi Ganapathi Group: The website advertisement claims premium residential plotted land for contemporary living. It also indicates that the area has a list of several ready amenities like 5Ft foot path with tiles, Landscape Park with jogging park, 24*7 sophisticated security, children’s play area and compounds surrounding the whole township for the residents. However, the photographic and video evidence submitted by the complainant indicated that the claimed amenities advertised by the advertiser were not yet available. Hence, it was concluded that claims made in the advertisement in conjunction with available amenities were false and misleading.

Suo Motu Surveillance by ASCI for misleading advertisements

ASCI’s Suo Motu surveillance of Print and TV media through the National Advertisement Monitoring Services (NAMS) project picked out 254 advertisements, of which in 89 cases the advertisers promptly confirmed that the advertisements were being withdrawn post receiving the ASCI communication. All other 165 advertisements examined by the CCC were found to be misleading. Of these 165 advertisements, 77 belonged to the Education sector, 59 advertisements belonged to the Healthcare sector, six belonged to Real Estate, five to Visa/Immigration Services, five belonged to the Personal Care category, four belonged to the F&B category, and nine fell in the “Others” category.