The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) on Wednesday announced the appointment of Partha Sinha, President & Chief Brand Officer, BCCL as the new Chairman of its Board of Governors for 2024-25. Sudhanshu Vats, Deputy Managing Director, Pidilite Industries, has taken over as the Vice-Chairman and S. Subramanyeswar, Group CEO & Chief Strategy Officer-APAC, Lintas India has ben appointed as Hon. Treasurer.

A veteran in the marketing, media and communications field, Sinha has in the past worked with key organisations including Ogilvy, Publicis, BBH, McCann and Citibank.

Sinha told businessline, “I strongly believe that advertising is an integral part of the way society behaves and it is important to ensure there is ethical, inclusive, and transparent advertising. Self-regulation is one of the best possible ways to protect consumer interests and ASCI has been playing a key role in encouraging responsible advertising in the country.”

“With rapid changes in the digital environment and the emergence of new challenges, ASCI is committed to not just keeping up but to staying ahead. Deploying technology and AI to monitor errant advertising as well as putting our might behind preventive measures will be our focus in the days to come. This will ensure that creativity and responsibility coexist, creating an ecosystem that values consumers and encourages innovation,” he added.

ASCI Academy

Talking about the ASCI Academy initiative, Sinha added that, “We will work towards expanding the reach of ASCI Academy, which focuses on industry training and education, so more and more professionals are made aware about ethical principles of advertising . I believe by doing responsible advertising, one can do better business.”

In the past year, ASCI updated and introduced new guidelines on an array of categories this year, including deceptive patterns, charitable cause marketing, and green claims ads, among others. Sinha added that ASCI will continue to focus on addressing emerging concerns in various fields amidst rapidly changing consumption patterns. .

In 2023-34, ASCI’s complaint redressal and monitoring operations processed over 10,000 complaints and reviewing over 8,200 advertisements.