Indian Advertising Codes and Ethics

The tag line of the ASCI (Advertising Standards Council of India) says “Regulate yourself, or someone else will.” How true! So many ads with explicit scenes and double meaning words make it an embarrassment for families to sit and watch the TV together. Yes, it is a fact that advertising agencies tend to go overboard, when it comes to selling a product. Double meaning words, sexuality, violence, misleading, false and offensive advertising videos are now a part of our life. For parents and teachers, the greatest worry pertains to how children will perceive and incorporate the meaning of these ads in their young minds.

Need for Advertising Code in India

Advertisers should ensure that their ads are not offensive or violating the laws of the land. Ads should not violate the basic standards of decency, morality and religious beliefs of viewers. In India, certain ethics must be followed while creating ads.

Legal actions can be taken against advertisements that

• Ridicule caste, race, nationality, colour and creed.
• Goes against any provision of the Indian Constitution.
• Incite people towards criminal activity, provocative, cause disorder and/or violence in the country.
• Breach laws and/or glorify obscenity or violence in any form.
• Glorify terrorism, communal massacres, criminality and so on.
• Ridicule the father of the nation, the national emblem, part of Constitution or the image of a national leader or a state dignitary.
• Depict women in a deprecating manner. Females should not be portrayed in a manner that is obscene, exploitative or vulgar.
• Display distasteful visual content that goes beyond the established norms of good taste and decency.
• Exploit and encourage  social evils like child marriage, bride burning and dowry system.

Other Advertising Codes in India

What is the difference between unethical and ethical advertising? Unethical advertising methods use falsehoods to deceive the public; ethical advertising uses truthful facts to deceive the public. This was stated by Vilhjalmur Stefansson, 1964.

Here are some more ethics and standards to be followed in advertisements:

1. Permission will not be granted where objects are completely or largely religious or political in nature. Advertisements cannot be directed towards any religious or political end, or to gain mileage of any form.

2.  Any goods or services that are advertised should not have any defect or deficiencies of any form declared in the Consumer Protection Act 1986.

3. Products should not be portrayed in a way that misleads the public to infer that the item has some special, miraculous or a super natural quality, which is anyways difficult to prove.

4. Picture and the audible matter of the advertisement video should not be excessively 'loud'.

5. Advertisement should not endanger the safety of children or produce any sort of perversion or interest that prompts them to adopt or imitate unhealthy practices.

6. Any type of offensive, indecent, suggestive, vulgar, repulsive themes and/or treatment must be avoided under all circumstances.

Good creative advertisement will always attract people’s attention, but they should have meaningful visual content. one shouldn’t have an attitude to play with people’s sentiments and emotions.

Remember, the golden words of David Ogilvy, the famous Ad Guru, " A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself."