ASCI upholds complaints against 190 misleading ads

Advertising sector watchdog ASCI on Thursday said it upheld complaints against 190 misleading advertisements during June, including those of Horlicks, Amway, Revital, among others. The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) examined complaints against 334 advertisements, of which 106 advertisers ensured prompt corrective action, a statement said.

The consumer complaints council (CCC) of the ASCI upheld complaints against 190 ads out of 228 evaluated by them. Of the 190 misleading ads, a maximum, 112 belonged to the education sector, 40 to the healthcare sector, 10 to personal care, seven to the food and beverages sector, five to the media and broadcasting sector, five from consumer durables and 11 were from the 'others' category. It found Sun Pharma's Revital H Woman ad claim of nine of 10 women feeling energetic after using the product misleading and inadequately substantiated.

"The CCC observed that this claim is based on a study done by an independent body, the Home Tester Club. It was noted that while the samples of the test product were couriered to 1,000 sample respondents that met the eligibility criteria, there were only 604 members who completed the post-trial survey. The CCC noted that only those with a favourable disposition were allowed to complete the survey. "The CCC did not consider the design of the questionnaire to be acceptable or reliable to generate a claim support data as only one product was used for survey, thus most likely creating bias in favour of the Product in the minds of participants/respondents of the survey. A comparative claim could have been a better approach," it said while noting that most of the questions were leading to elicit a favourable response.

It also pulled up Mankind Pharma's Manforce Cocktail Condom television advertisements for not airing at the watershed hours of post 10 pm till 6 am, thus contravening the advisory of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry. In the case of health food drink brand Horlicks, it noted the web advertisement slogan 'What you eat is not what you get' juxtaposed with the text 'Horlicks has bioavailable nutrients which get absorbed in the blood and are carried to all parts of the body' that create an impression in the consumer's mind that the advertiser's product is superior to food because it is bioavailable.

It added that juxtaposing 'clinically proven' and 'bioavailable nutrients' with other claims made, appears to be misleading because the submitted clinical trial does not unambiguously and fully support these claims. Amway India's Nutrilite Traditional Herbs range claim was considered to be misleading by ambiguity and omission of the reference to the product containing extracts and not whole herbs.

It also pulled up Hindustan Unilever's Men's Fair & Lovely ad voice over claim of real instant fairness in just ten seconds after applying as misleading by ambiguity and implication..

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)