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Narendra Ambwani, Director, Agro Tech Foods Ltd, has been elected as Chairman of the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI).
He has been a member of the board of governors for seven years and provided active support to self-regulation in the advertising market.
Benoy Roy Chawdhuri was elected as Vice-Chairman, while Shashidhar Sinha was appointed Honorary Treasurer.
During 2013-14, the Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) met 41 times and considered complaints against 1,937 advertisements.
Of these, complaints against 1,520 advertisements were upheld, while 414 were not upheld and three were considered non-issues. In over 90 per cent of cases, where a complaint against the advertisement was upheld, the advertisements have been voluntarily withdrawn or modified as per the CCC’s decisions, a statement said.
Partha Rakshit, the outgoing Chairman of ASCI, said, “Last year has been a very eventful and successful year for us. ASCI’s effective action towards reducing the complaint processing turnaround time to just 12 days has led ASCI to win the EASA Gold Award for Best Practices. In a noteworthy achievement, ASCI issued guidelines on skin lightening & fairness products which ensured that these advertisements do not depict people with dark skin as somehow inferior to those who are fairer. Also recently, the Government took notice of ASCI’s efforts to curb teleshopping ads that violate ASCI Code and ensured a strict compliance of the advertising code in the Cable Television Networks Act (CTN).”
Ambwani, the incoming Chairman said, “There has been tremendous change in ASCI’s approach towards advertising content and adherence to the ASCI’s guidelines by the advertisers. Earlier, we acted primarily on complaint received from the public or the industry body. In the coming year, we hope to promote ASCI’s guidelines more vigorously among advertisers and creative agencies, so that new ads meet ASCI’s standards at the creative stage itself. We also hope to collaborate strongly with the regulators and consumer groups to ensure fairness and responsibility in advertising.”
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