Asci Unveils Ad To Protect Consumers

The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) announced the launch of its first television advertising campaign to gain public's confidence in advertisements today. Through the campaign, ASCI seeks to ensure that no advertiser gets away with dishonest, indecent or misleading advertisement.

ASCI is a voluntary body set up by the advertising industry in 1985 to ensure that all advertisements are truthful, safe, decent, legal and fair to competition.

Council chairman Sam Balsara said: "Clearly, the sole objective of the campaign is to ensure that the consumers' interests are protected. The campaign should go a long way in building public confidence and demonstrating to consumers that the advertising community is a responsible lot."

For creating self-regulation in advertising, a 30-second TV commercial featuring Priya Tendulkar, is expected to run on all major Hindi channels starting August 24. The channels include Sony, Star and Sahara. Zee TV and Doordarshan have not yet confirmed their participation. Beginning this month, ASCI has released a set of four ad campaigns in the print.

"I must admit that the print as well as the electronic media have been very supportive in helping ASCI to advertise for a good cause, without charging any amount. We have also approached Zee TV and Doordarshan, but they have not yet confirmed their participation," Balsara said.

Currently, ASCI receives approximately 150 complaints in one year. The council hopes the figure to triple after the launch of the campaign. "Five years ago, the ratio of the complaints registered by companies and consumers was 30:70. Toady, it is 50:50. After this ad, we expect the consumers' number to go much higher than companies'."

The ad film has been conceived by Madison Creative and produced by Kuttu Chatterjee of Hi Klass films free-of-cost.