By IT Correspondent
Mumbai, September 6:
The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has partnered with TAM Media Research to add the monitoring of digital platforms to the already tracked print and television media under its National Advertising Monitoring Service (NAMS) for identifying potentially misleading advertisements.
Initially, ASCI will track the food and beverage, healthcare and education sectors on digital media as they accounted for 79% of the complaints processed by ASCI last year. With this, ASCI will now be monitoring a media horizon that is estimated to have more than 80% of India’s advertising spend on it.
With digital advertising now accounting for 30% of the total media spends, and growing fast, this was the need of the hour. The variety of platforms covered spans search engines to video sites, news portals and websites for interests like astrology and automobiles. It is a natural extension of the responsibilities ASCI takes on to ensure the highest ethical standards in advertising and to increase consumer trust in it.
Rohit Gupta, chairman, ASCI, said: “We live in a world that’s becoming more digital by the day, so a lot of marketing has been shifting to such platforms. For a self-regulatory body, it makes sense to expand our monitoring of the offline space to include the online space as well. I believe ASCI is the only self-regulatory organisation in the world that does such extensive and ongoing monitoring of advertising. We couldn’t have asked for a better partner than TAM – its reputation and wide experience will help us achieve our mission to enhance trust in advertising and to ensure that our ethical code is adhered to.”
In the meanwhile Manisha Kapoor has taken over as the new Secretary-General of ASCI. She will shoulder responsibilities of the consumer complaints redressal process, marketing, PR and social media initiatives. She has been part of ASCI’s Consumer Complaints Council for the past five years. She took over from Shweta Purandare.
Purandare had joined ASCI eight years ago as Chief Complaints Officer and took over in 2014 as the Secretary-General. During her tenure, ASCI launched its WhatsApp number, and set up new complaint redressal and review processes. She also was the prime mover behind ASCI’s vibrant presence on social media.
Rohit Gupta, Chairman of ASCI, said: “We thank Purandare for her work in achieving our
vision and her belief in our goals and motto. She was instrumental in enabling ASCI’s closer
engagement with the regulators resulting in ASCI signing MoUs with the Union Department of Consumer Affairs, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India and the Union Ministry of AYUSH.
