Shaping a transparent and ethical digital landscape: Will ASCI’s guidelines work?

In a bid to enhance user experiences and uphold ethical standards within the digital realm, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) recently unveiled its latest set of guidelines, titled ‘Online Deceptive Design Patterns in Advertising’. This pioneering move aims to empower designers, businesses, and stakeholders to create user-centric experiences while fostering transparency and trust.

With an increasing number of consumers turning to digital platforms, marketing strategies have evolved to become more sophisticated and personalised. However, amidst this evolution, certain practices, which are not only misleading but also potentially predatory, have emerged. These practices, commonly known as Dark Patterns, hinder consumers’ ability to take informed decisions, and have caught the attention of ASCI.

The ASCI emphasises that such deceptive practices are intentionally designed to manipulate consumer choices, often compromising their best interests in favour of the advertiser’s agenda. As a result, it becomes imperative to address these issues and promote a fair and balanced digital landscape that prioritizes user welfare.

By introducing these new guidelines, ASCI aims to curb the prevalence of Dark Patterns in online advertising. These guidelines will serve as a framework to identify and eliminate deceptive design practices, ensuring that businesses and advertisers prioritise transparency and user satisfaction above all else.

By proactively combating deceptive design patterns, ASCI envisions a future where consumers can browse digital platforms with confidence, free from manipulative tactics and misleading practices. The guidelines will not only protect consumers, but also foster a sense of trust between businesses and their customers, ultimately creating a healthier and more responsible online advertising ecosystem. As the digital landscape continues to evolve, ASCI’s efforts mark a significant step towards a more transparent and user-centric era of online advertising.

In this special report, Adgully seeks to assess the impact of ASCI’s guidelines on deceptive design patterns in online advertising. Will they effectively address the issue and promote transparency in the digital advertising space?

The impact of ASCI’s guidelines can be perceived as a positive step towards addressing the issue and promoting transparency in the digital advertising space, says Mansi Shah, Brand Planner and New Business Director at Famous Innovations.

She feels that these guidelines provide clear instructions and standards for advertisers to follow. The effectiveness of these guidelines will depend on their implementation and enforcement, ensuring that advertisers are aware of the guidelines and actively comply with them, she adds.

ASCI’s new guidelines are much needed and certainly welcome, notes Hayden Scott, Creative Director at Virtue Worldwide, a creative agency powered by Vice Group. “That said, how effective it is remains to be seen and in my opinion will depend on how strongly it is enforced. Also, the question remains – given how fragmented the Internet is, how will one keep a track of law-breakers?” he asks.

Gautam Reddy, Co-founder & CEO, PAD Group, believes that these guidelines will motivate the digital advertising industry to course correct and ensure that stakeholder value and consumer value both go hand-in-hand.

“As someone like me, who has always been a proponent of customer-centric advertising, the guidelines from ASCI are a welcome step. As per market research, the average Indian spends 7.3 hours on his phone and sees between 4,000 and 10,000 ads daily. Due to this dense population of ads, online advertising has become an extremely competitive realm. Unfortunately, to separate themselves from the crowd and get noticed from the crowd, marketers have had to resort to ‘dark patterns’, as the ASCI has described it. However, although I am positively hopeful, I am a bit sceptical regarding the impact of this move. Some might flout these guidelines in the interest of standing out,” says Gautam Reddy.

Ethical advertising

Ethical advertising practices play a crucial role in building trust between advertisers and consumers. Adherence to ethical standards contributes to long-term brand reputation and customer loyalty.

Citing the example of the AIDA model, Reddy points out, “Non-ethical advertising practices will definitely ensure that the consumer decision-making process will flow from A = Awareness to I = Interest, but in the D = Desire stage, which is a combination of both rationale and emotion, the consumer evaluates several brand alternatives. If the consumer experiences any of the dark patterns, the process of evaluation stops right there as they feel cheated. This breach of trust will lead to brand blacklisting in the consumer’s mind.”

On the other hand, he adds, if the consumers have a WYSIWYG brand experience that matches the product expectations, it creates a positive brand image, better customer satisfaction and increased conversions.

Mansi Shah believes that ethical advertising practices play a crucial role in building trust between advertisers and consumers. When consumers perceive an advertisement as honest, respectful, and genuine, they are more likely to trust the brand behind it and develop a positive association.

A few things Famous Innovations does are:

• Asking someone who is not working on the campaign to react to figure out if they think of the work as deceptive
• Instead of seeing client’s legal department as an enemy of the creative work, and showing them the work in the end just for approval, the agency collaborates with them at every stage and structure the campaign accordingly
• A quick consumer dipstick to understand their reactions
• Truly believing that creative and innovative campaigns can thrive within ethical boundaries

“By understanding the guidelines thoroughly, collaborating closely with our clients, and encouraging open communication, we ensure that our campaigns are both captivating and compliant. Staying updated with industry trends and emerging formats help us strike the right balance between creativity and ethics,” Shah adds.

She further says, “These guidelines help us perceive online advertising as more trustworthy and informative. And when consumers see the ads they can trust, it improves their overall digital experience. It also helps brands achieving better results, which ultimately helps the whole category to grow.

Balancing creativity and innovation with ethical boundaries is a continuous challenge in the dynamic digital advertising landscape.

“We ensure that our creative ideas align with ethical principles and are mindful of the potential impact on consumers. We often face challenges in maintaining this balance for some of our AlcoBev brands. However, by fostering a culture of ethics within our agency and collaborating closely with clients who share our values, we have overcome these challenges and created impactful campaigns within ethical boundaries,” Shah adds.

She further says that the agency is already working with a lot of these guidelines for offline advertising. She requests representatives from ASCI to do a quick workshop for their team.

Advertising is having a crisis of trust, opines Hayden Scott. In fact, he adds, it’s a crisis that has been happening for a while now. “Consumers are saying, ‘You are selling me something, why should I trust you?’ We talk about things like creating content and making ads less like ads. All well and good; but if we are to repair that trust in a tangible way, we need to look at all our work through the strict lens of ethics. At Virtue, we firmly believe that ethical advertising practices are the cornerstone of building trust between advertisers and consumers. Experience tells us that when consumers perceive a brand as trustworthy and authentic, they are more likely to engage with it. The result? Happy brand, happy agency, and happy consumers. And that can only be a good thing,” Scott adds.

Creative solutions

Deceptive design patterns in online advertising can often manipulate users and mislead them into taking unintended actions. It is important to ensure that the agencies’ creative solutions prioritise transparency and do not employ such deceptive practices. So, what are the specific strategies or best practices that agencies follow in this regard?

In today’s world, says Gautam Reddy, anything that is perfect is viewed with an amplitude of scepticism. He elaborates, “Brands that have exposed themselves in the most vulnerable ways possible have garnered both mind and market share. I think the best way to evade deceptive practices is to focus on the rational differentiators of the product and the emotional differentiators of the brand. This way, you creatively ensure that your advertising stands out from the crowd and the right audience is attracted to it. We at Hotcult religiously follow such practices to keep dark patterns at bay. Our one-of-a-kind offering to leverage Bharat for India-first brands allows us to craft a consumer-forward experience ensuring transparency, integrity, community connect and most importantly, brand affinity.”

“At Virtue Worldwide, we have always said that the consumer has to be at the heart of our work. Their needs, perceptions, expectations and world view have to be taken into consideration before any communication goes to them. In terms of best practices, we maintain open lines of communication with our clients and regularly review the work we put out to ensure our campaigns remain transparent and free from deceptive design patterns,” explains Hayden Scott.

The digital advertising landscape is constantly evolving, with new design techniques and formats emerging. It is essential that agencies balance the need for creativity and innovation in their advertising campaigns while staying within the ethical boundaries outlined by ASCI’s guidelines. What are the challenges that agencies face in maintaining this balance?

“I always say that our business is two parts creativity and one part common sense. You don’t need to be a genius to figure out that you can be creative without being deceptive or unethical. It’s really not hard. And as a business we are masters of working within tight guidelines and even tighter briefs. I don’t see how ethics and creativity are connected. You must be ethical if you want your creativity to be effective. And who doesn’t want their work to be effective?” points out Hayden Scott.

Some argue that stringent guidelines may stifle creativity and limit the potential of advertising campaigns. Can ethical advertising and innovative design coexist, and if so, how does one strike the right balance?

“Don Norman, the grandfather of user-centred design, had famously said: ‘We have to design for the way people are and not the way we want them to be.’ A strong commitment to not manipulating the consumer is hard-coded into that statement. If we talk about good design today we have to realise that it is synonymous with ethical design. Creativity in 2023 has to be ethical first. And if we are being really honest here, manipulation and deception is a very myopic approach to building a brand. Simply put, ethical advertising is good business. Period,” stresses Hayden Scott.

In light of ASCI’s guidelines, can we anticipate any significant changes or adaptations that creative agencies will need to make to their design and advertising strategies?

Agencies will certainly need to be careful, but Hayden Scott does not anticipate any major changes. “Because as I mentioned, a lot of what we do is common sense – it’s not possible to design something and not be aware of the fact that it is unethical or deceptive. But if you keep ethics and best practices at the core of your work you will never have these issues. And this also includes firmly pushing back when a client suggests something of this sort. Ethics are a two-way street. Nothing goes out of an agency’s door without it being approved first by a client. So, a mutual understanding and commitment to doing the right thing is important. For our part, we are going to start by familiarising all our teams with these new guidelines. It’s important that the onus of ethical work rests on all parties involved,” he concludes.