A comprehensive set of draft guidelines on advertising

Consumer Affairs Ministry has come out with draft guideline on advertisements to prevent misleading advertisements and protect consumer interests.

• For an advertisement to be considered valid, companies will need to ensure their ads are truthful, contain honest representation and make claims that can be substantiated.
• They will also need to ensure that advertisements targeted at children do not promote emulation of dangerous behaviour.
• While comparing their own products with that of their rivals are factual, accurate and can be substantiated.
• Under the recently notified Consumer Protection Act, 2019, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has been empowered to issue necessary guidelines to prevent unfair trade practices and protect consumers’ interest.

Regulating Brand ambassadors

• The draft guidelines state that besides companies, even brand ambassadors will need to do due diligence to ensure that all “descriptions, claims and comparisons” made by products that they endorse or that are made in advertisements they feature in, are capable of being objectively ascertained.
• Even endorsement of products done through personal testimonial on digital platforms by celebrities will need to be genuine.
• Meanwhile, the proposed guidelines also state that companies will need to ensure that disclaimers, made to expand or clarify claims, will need to be clear, legible, made in the same language and font as that of the claim in an advertisement.
• The draft guideline also addresses the issue concerning misleading “bait advertising”, “free product” and “surrogate advertising”.