New Delhi, Nov 16 (FN Agency) Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) in the half-yearly complaint report released on Wednesday said there was a 14 percent rise in the number of complaints against advertisements and a 35 percent increase in the number of ads processed during half year period (April to September, 2022) as against the corresponding period in the previous year. During the period, it processed 3,340 complaints against 2764 advertisements that were in potential violation of the ASCI code, the report stated. About 55 percent of these ads were spotted across the digital domain, followed by 39 percent in print and 5 percent on television.
Education remained the most violative sector with 27 percent of the complaints related to it – 22 percent belonged to the classical education category while 5 percent were from the ed tech sector. These were followed by personal care (14%), food & beverages (13%), healthcare (13%) and gaming (4%). ASCI’s surveillance remains strong, picking up 65 percent of the ads processed suo motu. About 98 percent of consumers’ complaints were received by the Artificial-Intelligence-based complaints management system TARA. The introduction of TARA has given consumers a comprehensive, hassle-free redressal process. About 16 percent of the total complaints recorded were from consumers, followed by 15 percent from the government, while intra-industry complaints comprised 3 percent. Of the 2,764 potentially objectionable ads processed, 32% were not contested by the advertisers, 59 percent further were found in violation of the ASCI code and 8 percent were found not to be violating the code.
Manisha Kapoor, CEO and Secretary-General, ASCI, said “Looking at the rapid growth of digital advertising, we have invested heavily in ad-surveillance technology. In our constant pursuit of transparency, we have released a comprehensive report about the kinds of complaints and outcomes that ASCI has looked into during the first six months of the financial year.” Of the total complaints received by ASCI, 28 percent of the violations were by influencers. Of the 781 complaints processed against influencers, 34 percent were from the personal care category, followed by food and beverage at 17 percent, and virtual digital assets at 10 percent, the report added.