Ads Featuring Celebrities' And Influencers Among The Top Violations - ASCI Annual Complaints Report
The real money gaming industry leads in advertising violations, as per the ASCI Annual Complaints report.
The Advertising Standards Council of India on Wednesday shared its annual report 2022-23 where they have investigated 7928 ads.
75% of violative ads were spotted on Digital media raising concerns about the online safety of consumers, the report said. The remaining ads belonged to print (21%), TV (3%), and others (1%).
The violations in the digital media channels were scattered among Instagram (33%), Facebook (31%), Websites (22%), YouTube (12%), and others (2%).
The report highlighted the key industries that violated advertising norms. They are gaming, education, healthcare, crypto, and personal care etc.
As per the report, one in four ads that the Council accessed belonged to influencer violation.
Ad Violations In 2022-23
As per the Advertising Council, there has been a dynamic surge in the number of complaints and the board has struggled to review them. In 2022-23, there were 8,951 complaints and the Council worked on 7,928 of them.
A 17% increase has been observed in the number of complaints as compared to the previous year.
Many complaint sources came from Suo Moto (action taken by court) (88%), General Public (9%), Industry (1.8%), consumer organizations, and the government.
Top Influencer Violations
Personal care (36%), food & beverages (15%), fashion & lifestyle (14%), eCommerce, and other services are among top categories where influencer violations were noted.
There were 2039 complaints against influencers and this contributed to 26% of ads complaining against ASCI.
Top Celebrity Violations
As mentioned in the report, in 97% of cases celebrities fail to provide evidence of due diligence that is required by the law.
In spite of the Consumer Protection Act now legally requiring celebrities to do their due diligence when they appear in ads, in 97% of cases processed by ASCI featuring celebrities, they failed to provide any evidence of due diligence.
ASCI witnessed a massive rise in the number of complaints featuring celebrities in the year 2022- 23.
503 ads featuring celebrities were processed as opposed to 55 ads the previous year.
What Kind Of Complaints Does The ASCI Address?
Established in 1985, The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) is the self-regulatory body of the Indian advertising industry. ASCI resolves issues around:
Dishonest or misleading ads
Indecent or offensive ads
Harmful ads
Ads that are unfair in competition
You can access the fill report here.