The Hindu Business Line : Surrogate advertising

Apropos the article What’s Surrogate About Advertising that appeared in the BrandLine edition dated March 27, 2008, Nazeeb Arif, Vice-President (Corporate Communications), ITC Ltd, writes: “Sir, I am reproducing below the text of an e-mail we have just sent to Ramesh Narayan in connection with his article What’s Surrogate About Advertising? that appeared in the March 27, 2008 edition of your newspaper. The contents of the e-mail are self-explanatory. In the course of that article you have stated: “Advertisers like ITC went ahead and set up a chain of lifestyle stores under the name and style of a cigarette brand they owned. This was when there were already rules and laws in place that expressly forbade this.”

“Further, you proceed to state, “Today we have a large airline that is a legitimate business called Kingfisher. And a large chain of lifestyle stores called Wills. An equally legitimate business. Yet, even Vijay Mallya would not be able to tell you with a straight face that his airline was named Kingfisher at a time when it was legal to do so. Nor would Yogi Deveshwar. And they are both honourable men.” Quite clearly, you have asserted that the establishing of Wills Lifestyle Stores by ITC was expressly forbidden by law. This statement is a false and reckless statement. We ask you to clearly state as to which law forbade the establishing of the Wills Lifestyle stores. Further, by innuendo, you have implied that our Chairman Mr Y. C. Deveshwar believed it was not legal to establish the Wills Lifestyle stores at the time they were established. Needless to say, this is defamatory of Mr Deveshwar and our company. We also note that your article contains statements to the effect that ITC’s advertising of some of its non-tobacco products is illegal, which is false. Here again we find that you have not referred to any law or legal provision on which such statement is based. We ask you to clarify the basis on which you have contended that such advertising by ITC is illegal. That the article is not based on any verification of relevant facts is also evident from your statement: “The picture of a scorpion on a cigarette packet is probably the most ludicrous attempt at scaring anyone away.” Obviously, you are under the impression that the law requires cigarette packets to carry the picture of a scorpion.

“If you had cared to look at the notification dated March 15, 2008, issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, you would have found that the options prescribed for the smoking forms of tobacco packs, which include cigarettes, are the picture of a diseased pair of lungs and the picture of an x-ray of a diseased pair of lungs. The picture of a scorpion is prescribed only for smokeless forms of tobacco and not for smoking forms. We are disappointed that a respected newspaper like yours should have allowed the publication of statements which amount to accusations of contravention of the law, without proper basis. While we do respect the author’s and your right to opinion on any matter, we would request that before any defamatory statements, such as those we have referred to in our e-mail to him, are made, a thorough verification of the facts and the law is carried out. We would be much obliged if a clarification is carried in your newspaper, that the statements in Ramesh Narayan’s article, as indicated in our e-mail to him, are indeed not correct.”

Mr Ramesh Narayan replies:

“I agree there is nothing illegal in the opening or the running of the Wills Lifestyle Stores at all. In fact, I have commented that it is a legitimate business. What I wrote and meant was that the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act 1994 specifically prohibits any advertising that directly or indirectly promotes consumption of tobacco in any form. This, to me, meant that tobacco brands could not be advertised. Six years after that Act came into effect the Wills Lifestyle stores were launched with considerable advertising. Can the advertising of a newly launched business (at that time) with a brand name almost identical to that of a tobacco product (Wills) be regarded as anything other that surrogate of a product subject to legal advertising restrictions? That is all I said and meant. May I add that apart from saying that Mr Deveshwar was probably aware of this as well, I certainly did not mean to defame him or anyone else I write about in any way. I regard him as a respected leader of industry. I hope this clarifies the matter.”