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Tag: EASA

  • ASCI bags gold award for mobile app ‘ASCIonline’

    MUMBAI: The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has bagged the gold award for their Mobile App “ASCIonline” to receive consumer complaints against false advertisement at the Global EASA Best Practice Awards 2016.

    The Indian self-regulatory advertising watch-dog was awarded the prestigious prize at Athens on 8 May 2017 for launching the best initiative globally providing “Prompt and efficient complaint handling at no cost to the consumer”.

    The Consumer Complaint Mobile App – ASCIonline – was launched in June 2015 to provide easy and convenient access for lodging complaints, increasing ASCI’s reach across India.

    With a catchy slogan ‘Snap It and App It’, the App lets consumers’ flag complaints against offensive/misleading/vulgar advertisements. For every complaint, they get real-time auto updates within the App every time the status of the complaint is changed with regard to the progress of the complaint.

    Keeping the design and interface clean, uncomplicated, and user-friendly, ASCI has ensured to rightly “M(obile)–Power” consumers providing the utility to voice against misleading advertisements.

    This Free App which is available on android and iOS platforms continues to contribute upto 10% in the total number of complaints received even today.

    ASCI chairman Srinivasan K. Swamy said, “We are delighted to receive this esteemed honour from EASA for recognizing our efforts towards strengthening ASCI’s role in self-regulation in the country. Continuing with the mission to protect consumers’ interest, ASCI embraced technology to connect with the consumers and curb misleading advertisements. This pathbreaking initiative has spurred expand ASCI’s reach significantly across many smaller cities and towns. The App was also referred to by Government Departments in India and appreciated for the pro-activeness of ASCI. After three successive wins in the past, acquiring another Gold has further provided cognisance for the SRO on an International platform as well.”

    ASCI is now a part of the Executive Committee of the International Council on Advertising Self-Regulation (ICAS), which unites global Self-Regulatory Organisations (SROs) and international Industry Associations to form a powerful body that will facilitate the establishment of new SROs in emerging markets, help empower them and provide a platform to discuss and work on solutions regarding the global challenges faced for self-regulation in advertising.

  • ASCI appoints Partha Rakshit as the new chairman

    ASCI appoints Partha Rakshit as the new chairman

    MUMBAI: Partha Rakshit Associates’ proprietor Partha Rakshit was unanimously elected as the chairman at the board meeting of The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI).
    ASCI’s biggest task in the coming year is to more vigorously disseminate ASCI’s guidelines through training programs believes Partha Rakshit

    The incoming chairman, Partha Rakshit said, “The last couple of years have seen a sea change in ASCI’s approach to self regulating advertising content. Earlier, we acted primarily on complaint received by the public. In May 2012, ASCI setup NAMS, a system of monitoring all new TV and print ads released across India, where trained professionals screened each ad to assess whether it meets ASCI’s code on honest and ethical advertising. This pro-active step has enlarged ASCI’s role as a self regulatory body manifold. I believe ASCI’s biggest task in the coming year is to more vigorously disseminate ASCI’s guidelines through training programs to the advertisers and ad agencies who create the ads and to media who release them, so that the proportion of new ads that meet ASCI’s standards is high at the stage of release itself. ASCI will also liaise more closely with regulators to ensure that ads which do not comply with CCC’s upheld complaint decision are acted upon as per the law of the land”.

    The outgoing chairman of the association, Arvind Sharma said, “Last year has been a very eventful year for ASCI. The NAMS Initiative which has seen a fivefold increase in the Ads complained against (from 177 to 788) has won ASCI the prestigious EASA Silver Award for Best Practices. The CCC now meets every week and approx complaints against 200 Advertisements are deliberated upon every month. Set up of the Online Complaints and Monitoring Services (OCMS) in the new look ASCI website also has started getting complaints against ads coming in from consumers in large numbers. ASCI has also introduced Suspension Pending Investigation where an Advertiser is asked to suspend an Ad immediately pending investigation when that Ad appears to be in serious breach of the Code.’

    Agro Tech Foods director Narendra Ambwani was elected as the vice-chairman; and Mediabrands CEO Shashidhar Sinha was appointed the Honorary Treasurer.
    The other members of the new Board of Governors are: Hemant Bakshi (Hindustan Unilever), Shantanu Khosla (Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care), Jayant Singh (Glaxo SmithKline Consumer Healthcare) from the advertisers, Rajan Anandan (Google India), Sunil Lulla (Times Television Network), Benoy Roychowdhury (HT Media), I. Venkat (Eenadu) from the media industry and the likes of Subhash Kamath (BBH Comms India), Arvind Sharma (Leo Burnett), Srinivasan Swamy (R.K. Swamy BBDO). Allied Professions: Dilip Cherian (Perfect Relations), S.K. Palekar (S.P. Jain Institute of Management), Abanti Sankaranarayanan (CIABC) from the advertising agencies.

    During the year 2012-13, the Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) met 24 times and considered 3007 complaints against 788 advertisements. Of these, complaints against 642 ads were upheld, while 144 were not upheld and 2 were considered non-issues. In 590 cases, the complaint upheld ads have been voluntarily withdrawn or modified as per the CCC’s decisions resulting in over 91% compliance rate.

  • ASCI bags Best Practices Silver Award for National Advertising Monitoring Service

    ASCI bags Best Practices Silver Award for National Advertising Monitoring Service

    NEW DELHI: The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), which is recognised by the government as the primary body for checking misleading commercials, has bagged the Best Practices Silver Award for establishing a National Advertising Monitoring Service on the print and TV ads.

    The award was given at the European Advertising Standards Alliance‘s (EASA) annual meeting held in Milan, Italy. The EASA Best Practice Award is presented each year to the self-regulatory organisation that has most effectively implemented an element of the EASA Best Practice Model-a set of operational standards for advertising standards bodies.

    ASCI chairman Arvind Sharma said, “ASCI through NAMS has done path breaking work in tracking down and removing ads which make misleading, false or unsubstantiated claims. And the EASA Best Practice Silver award is recognition by the global ad self regulatory organisations (SRO) that ASCI not only follows global best practices but also helps in innovating new ones.”

    He added: “This recognition encourages us to further strengthen the professional and ethical standards in the ad industry to ensure responsible advertising and thereby protect the interests of the consumers.”

    Proactive monitoring of NAMS on the print and TV ads has helped in tracking a large number of misleading ads and the number of ads against which complaints were received and processed by ASCI went up almost five times from 177 in 2011-2012 to 784 in 2012-2013.

    ASCI is a self-regulatory voluntary organisation of the advertising industry. ASCI along with its Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) deal with complaints regarding advertisements which are considered as false, misleading, illegal, leading to unsafe practices or unfair to competition and consequently in contravention of the ASCI Code for self-regulation in Advertising. They receive complaints both from the consumers and the industry.

    In May 2012, ASCI introduced NAMS in order to strengthen the process of tracking and reducing misleading advertisements which harm the interests of consumers. NAMS which comprises of the AdEx India, a division of TAM Media Research and with the support of trained personnel from the ASCI keeps a continuous check on all the newly released TV and Newspaper print ads to see that they are not violating any ASCI‘s advertisement code related to unsubstantiated, misleading or false claims.

    On an average, 1,500 TV and 45,000 newspaper ads are monitored monthly. If after persistent reminders, certain ads are not altered and are still being aired in the same manner, then the ASCI reports this to the relevant statutory authorities for action.

    In order to fasten the decision making process and to handle the recent jump in the number of complaints received and processed, the ASCI introduced the Consumer Complaint Council (CCC) and appointed Shweta Purandare as chief operations officer (COO) to drive the investigation of complaints besides heading the complaint redressal and follow up process. The meetings are being conducted every week instead of every fortnight so as to reduce the average complaint adjudication time.