The government’s recent guidelines prohibiting surrogate advertising have sparked a lot of controversies, particularly among alcohol companies.
Many readers will recall advertisements for music CDs, packaged drinking water, and glassware from various television brands. However, they were never available in any store. Why? They didn’t exist in the first place because they didn’t exist at all.
What you saw in those communications were surrogates for actual products that were not allowed to be advertised. They were alcohol brands in this case, including Bacardi Music CDs, Green Label packaged drinking water, and Blenders Pride glassware, to name a few.
A surrogate advertisement is a clever ploy to promote a non-existent product while slyly promoting a prohibited item. Tobacco companies, in addition to alcohol companies, occasionally run such ads.
The actor Akshay Kumar’s recent Vimal ad has been chastised for acting as a surrogate for pan masala, which is harmful to your health.
Clause 6 of The Central Consumer Protection Authority’s (CCPA) ‘Guidelines for Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements, 2022’ states:
Surrogate or indirect advertisements for goods or services whose advertising is prohibited or restricted by law shall not be made by misrepresenting such prohibition or restriction as an advertisement for other goods or services whose advertising is not prohibited or restricted by law.
The lack of information on brand extensions, on the other hand, drew the most attention: Provided, however, that the mere use of a brand name or company name, which may also be applied to goods, products, or services whose advertising is prohibited or restricted, shall not be considered surrogate or indirect advertisement if the advertisement is not otherwise objectionable following these guidelines.
The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), on the other hand, clearly states that a brand that has been in the market for more than two years must meet the following criteria:
The product or service should have a sales turnover of more than Rs 5 crore per annum nationally or Rs 1 crore per annum in each state where the distribution has been established.
“The issue of surrogate advertising, which is prohibited by law, versus brand extensions, which are permitted by law, is a grey area,” Manisha Kapoor, secretary-general and CEO of ASCI, says when asked about the CCPA’s ambiguity. In collaboration with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) and the CBFC, ASCI has established objective criteria to distinguish the two.”
When asked about the impact on alcove brand marketing budgets, Shweta Purandare, founder of Tap-a-Gain, describes the situation as “funny” because while alcohol advertising is illegal, “this notification does not stop genuine brand extensions.” (Purandare is also a former secretary-general of ASCI, head of corporate communication and brand at Diageo, and an advertising compliance expert.)
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