Every year, March 15 is celebrated as World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD), an annual occasion for celebration and solidarity within the international consumer movement. It marks the date when in 1962 the then United States President John F Kennedy first outlined the definition of Consumer Rights.
WCRD is an opportunity to promote the basic rights of all consumers, for demanding that those rights are respected and protected, and for protesting the market abuses and social injustices which undermine them. WCRD was first observed on March 15, 1983, and has since become an important occasion for mobilising citizen action. To mark World Consumer Rights Day, we bring you a checklist on how consumers can play a key role in identifying bad advertisements…
By Shweta Purandare
We all interact with advertising on a daily basis. It is a truly wonderful thing because it informs you about the range of products and services available, and gives you the right to choose. However, it is also seen that needs and desires for a product have been influenced and manipulated directly or indirectly by advertisements. Hence, the content an ad carries becomes of prime importance. Unfortunately, in midst of some great advertising, there are still some ads which erode the trust of consumers by making dishonest, unsubstantiated or misleading claims.
Consumers can play a strong role in identifying bad advertisements by keeping in mind that good ads must be truthful and honest, decent, responsible in promoting a product or a service and fair in terms of competition.
While the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), as a self-regulatory organisation for 30 years, takes suo motu action against advertisements that are in gross violation of the ASCI code, it is the consumer who can make a real difference to weed out such “bad ads†by flagging them off to the ASCI. The Council looks into every single complaint it receives, and it is important that the consumers send a specific complaint against a specific advertisment by providing their objection for ASCI to effectively process their complaint.
So how does one spot a ‘bad ad’? Here are 10 things to look out for:
1. If you find the ad making a promise too good to be true
2. Ads giving a 100 per cent (job) guarantee
3. Ads promising cure from incurable conditions or making claims to ‘cure’ things like diabetes, kidney stones, cancer, epilepsy, baldness, increase in height, infertility and such
4. Ads promoting magical potions, lotions, pills and tablets to enhance sexual potency
5. Those claiming to be No.1, in terms of brands/colleges/institutes. Be particularly wary of brands and institutions that are unheard of or insignificant in their presence
6. Absolute claims like “Bestâ€, “Finestâ€, “Mostâ€Â for which the advertiser needs to prove that their product is better than all the rest
7. Ads deriding any race, caste, colour, creed, gender or nationality
8. Ads depicting unsafe practices
9. Ads depicting violation of traffic rules such as riding two wheelers without a helmet, driving without a seat belt, overtaking from the wrong side of the road and such
10. Ads disparaging competitor products
Shweta Purandare is Secretary General at The Advertising Standards Council. This article first appeared in dna of brands dated March 14, 2016