Fast food chain McDonald’s, liquor maker Pernod Ricard and Amity University are among 40 entities which have been pulled up by advertising industry watchdog ASCI in April for misleading campaigns.
According to the Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) of ASCI (Advertising Standard Council of India), maximum number of complaints of misleading ads were against companies in health and personal care sector during the month.
ASCI said the CCC found an SMS ad of McDonald’s offering ’free McVeggie or McChicken on order of Rs 200 and above to’ be misleading as it did not specify that the offer was applicable only for home delivery.
“SMS was misleading by omission, as it did not mention that the offer of a free McVeggie or McChicken applies only to Home Delivery. The advertisement — SMS contravened the Code.
The complaint was upheld,” said ASCI.
The industry watchdog also upheld complaint against liquor maker Pernod Ricard for an advertorial on Jacob’s Creek brand saying “advertising of liquor is prohibited by most states. The CCC concluded that the communication was an advertorial pertaining to a surrogate product.”
In the education sector, complaints against 12 ads, which claimed 100 per cent job guarantee or total fee refund of fee if desired results are nor meet, were upheld.
One of the leading private institutions, Amity University, which had in its ‘MBA 2013 Admission Notice’ print advertisement showed rankings without mentioning the year, was also pulled up by ASCI.
Amity University showing its rankings given by ‘Business Today’ and ‘The Economic Time’’ without providing the details of the years of ranking is misleading, it said.
ASCI said during the January to April, it received 287 complaints and out of that 148 were found to be misleading, which accounts for 52 per cent of the total complaints.