Complaints against ads in healthcare, FMCG rise

In May, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) launched the National Advertising Monitoring Service (NAMS) in collaboration with TAM Media Research. With NAMS, the number of ads coming under the scrutiny of the Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) went up significantly.

There was an increase of misleading claims in the education, healthcare, FMCG & food sectors in the month of July. In other words, most of the ads that were pulled up belonged to these sectors.

In July this year, out of 38 ads that were complained against, the CCC upheld objections against 25.

Advertisements like, Hindustan Unilever's 'Pepsodent Germicheck Magnet' and 'Ponds Gen White' , Glaxosmithkline's 'Boost' , Ranbaxy Laboratore's 'Revital Woman', and Knorr's 'Knorr Soupy Noodles' are a few advertisements that contravened the code. Hence, complaints against such advertisements were upheld by the CCC.

The number of advertisements examined by the CCC has more than doubled from an average of fewer than 15 every month to as high as 38 in July this year. Since its inception, ASCI (through NAMS) has received 131 complaints in one quarter which is close to 76 per cent of the total complaints received (177) in the last one year.