Advertising industry watchdog upheld complaints against 215 campaigns in August this year for misleading ads, including those of Hindustan Unilever, Dabur, L’Oreal, Micromax, Reliance Communications, Colgate Palmolive and Nissan Motors.

According to the Customer Complaints Council (CCC) of Advertising Standard Council of India (ASCI), the maximum complaints of misleading ads during the month were from education and health & personal care category.

The CCC concluded that claims mentioned in advertisement of Hindustan Unilever Ltd’s Vaseline Healthy White Lotion saying four out of five Indian women using it as misleading. ASCI also found an ad by the telecom operator RCom as “insensitive towards adopted children”.

The telecom operators in its advertisement of Reliance Mobile showed that a child found on the temple steps and who is subsequently adopted, is being ridiculed by his own family.

Similarly, two complaints against Nissan Motors were also upheld.

In the first one, the automaker had claimed fuel economy of its sedan Sunny XL Diesel of 21 km per litre in a TV commercial. However, it was not substantiated by Nissan and the complaint was upheld. In the second, Nissan showed Sunny XV Diesel in the print ad but mentioned the price of a petrol car.

“This is definitely an attempt to mislead the consumer,” said ASCI in its order.

Moreover, it also concluded against four ads by liquor makers for indirectly advertising their products in TV ads, which is prohibited by law.

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