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Tag: SRO

  • 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.

  • ASCI gets powers to suspend code violating advertisers instantly

    MUMBAI: For long, some rogue advertisers have been taking advantage of the fact that the advertising industry watchdog, Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), takes time to cane them if they have violated any advertising codes. That will be a thing of the past, with ASCI introducing its Suspension Pending Investigation (SPI) policy. Under this, ads that breach ASCI’s code will be withdrawn immediately, pending decision of its Consumer Complaint Council (CCC).

    In September 2012, ASCI had said it was working on amending its articles of association along with the appointment of its new chairman Arvind Sharma, bringing it in line with the codes of some of the other Self-Regulatory Organisation (SROs) like the Advertising Standards Authority of the UK.

    The new SPI article states: “In exceptional circumstances, when it appears prima facie that an advertisement is in serious breach of the code and its continued transmission on/ through/ by any medium causes or has the effect of causing public harm and/or injury or its continuation is against public interest, then ASCI would, pending investigation and decision by CCC, forthwith require the advertiser/ the advertising agency/ the media buying agency and the media concerned to immediately suspend the release of advertisement.

    “Also, in the event of suspension of any ad in the manner as aforesaid, the CCC shall at the earliest and not later than 30 days from the date of the suspension, adjudicate whether or not the advertisement is in breach of the Code and pass appropriate order accordingly after giving a reasonable opportunity to hear to the advertiser whose advertisement has been suspended. This decision of the suspension is to be taken by the chairman (or, in his absence, the Vice Chairman) of ASCI, in consultation with two members of the CCC.”

    The initiative is a personal victory for Sharma who has been mooting this for a while. Says he: “Suspension Pending Investing is an important landmark for ASCI. It will ensure immediate action against advertisements that are clearly seen as against public interest. This initiative will go a long way in getting seriously offending ads removed immediately before they cause any damage to the consumers and society in general. We expect the advertising sector consisting of advertisers, ad agencies and media to support this very important initiative wholeheartedly to protect the interests of Indian consumers and general public.”

    For the record, ASCI has in the recent past taken other initiatives to speed up its decision making process. From monthly meetings of its CCC, it has moved to bi- monthly meetings. This has reduced the – average complaint adjudication – time from 45 days to 30 days. ASCI has also introduced the fast track complaint redressal process which provides decision against intra industry complaints within seven days.

    Clearly, the bells are tolling for rogue advertisers and agencies.