ASCI in search of relevance

Very few seem to be taking the council seriously even after 25 years of its existence.

The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), a self-regulatory advertising body, is 25 years old now. Despite the progression of time, there is still a question that lingers in most minds: How effective is the body? Can the ASCI Code be enforced across all media channels taking errant advertisers and agencies to task? How seriously do the latter take ASCI at all?

While the questions are many, and the answers few, office bearers of the body insist they are doing their bit to promote the cause of self-regulation in the industry. “Compliance,” says the Council’s secretary general Allen Colaco, “is close to 80 per cent across all media vehicles. It has come down a bit in comparison to last year when we found compliance almost 90 per cent. But that hasn’t perturbed us,” he says. “We continue to do our job.”

This, say industry experts, is hardly a satisfactory answer. Bharat Kapadia, board member of the Lokmat Group, and former ASCI chairman, is vocal about the issues plaguing the body. He says, “Out of the 25 years of ASCI’s existence, the bulk has been spent grappling with the fact that it had no regulatory authority or framework. It is only now that the ASCI Code has been brought under the purview of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995. This means that television channels have to take off ads against whom complaints have been received, which are upheld by the body. This makes the task easy on television as far as enforcement goes. But that is not the case in print, outdoor or internet, for instance, where there is no means to regulate what is put up because ASCI doesn’t have the authority to do so. It doesn’t make the body any strong then,” he says.

Ironically, this is just part of the problem plaguing ASCI. The other one is crucial, say industry observers, of acting with speed, when a violation takes place. “By the time ASCI is able to do anything in a particular matter, the campaign against whom complaints have been received has run its course. What is the point then that you take action against a campaign or the creators and executors of it? You have to do it in time. That is key,” says Kapadia.

ASCI office bearers, however, contend that it is necessary to give time when arbitrating in a particular matter. “We have to hear both sides of the story,” says Colaco. “So we write to the party against whom the complaint has been received. We give them time for about 15 days to respond to the questions raised. Once the response is received, the matter is taken up at the Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) meeting, where a decision is taken. This may take time, but you have to be fair,” he says.

Advertisers and agencies, however, admit that timely action is at the heart of the matter if the body has to be relevant in a day and age when ambush marketing has become the norm. “Advertisers act with such speed today that by the time you blink, the campaign is off air,” says an executive with a fast-moving consumer goods company.

Take Hindustan Unilever’s recent Rin commercial, say observers, which openly compared rival Procter & Gamble’s Tide Naturals with it on the parameter of superior whiteness. The commercial was tactically released on February 26, a Friday, to take advantage of the long weekend ahead (Holi fell on March 1, which was a Monday). “So the campaign got an uninhibited run through Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. By the time the aggrieved party had a chance to react the damage had been done,” says an advertising industry expert.

Incidentally, members of ASCI’s CCC, who process complaints on a monthly basis, are beginning to see the importance of acting with speed. Says Paritosh Joshi, chief executive officer, STAR CJ Network India, who is also a member of ASCI’s CCC, “Timely intervention is needed,” he says. “Otherwise the purpose is simply lost.”

Joshi says that the CCC did try meeting twice a month two years ago to speed up redressal of matters. “But we found there were not enough complaints to act upon. There was no point holding a bi-monthly meeting then,” he says.

In Joshi’s view, more people need to complain against an ad they find offensive. “We need a harvest of complaints,” he says.