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Celebs liable for misleading ads: New rules
The Union government has notified tighter norms related to mass advertising in print, television and social media under The Consumer Protection Authority (Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Necessary Due Diligence for Endorsement of Advertisements) Guidelines 2022.
Celebrities endorsing products or services can be held responsible and face action for appearing in misleading promotions, say a raft of new guidelines that came into effect on Friday under the Consumer Protection Act. The new framework also bans surrogate ads — a common practice for liquor and chewing tobacco companies.
The Union government has notified tighter norms related to mass advertising in print, television and social media under The Consumer Protection Authority (Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Necessary Due Diligence for Endorsement of Advertisements) Guidelines 2022. The guidelines also lay down sharper definitions of what constitute “fair and valid advertisements”.
The consumer protection law already provides for action against misleading ads and penalties for violators but the new rules target celebrity endorsements which may be unlawful, ads that can be detrimental for children, and surrogate advertising.
“There are already provisions to handle misleading ads, but the new guidelines make them more explicit and clearer to the industry, so they know what the framework is,” consumer affairs secretary Rohit Kumar Singh said.
The regulations require celebrities to carry out “specific due diligence” while endorsing products. The endorsement “must be based on adequate information about, or experience with the identified goods, product or service”, the new rules state.
They come at a time when several popular actors and top cricketers have been endorsing gaming and gambling apps, and chewing tobacco.
“An important aspect is whether celebrities endorsing products have made due diligence and enquiry about a product or a service to which they are using their celebrity status or image,” additional secretary in the consumer affairs ministry Nidhi Khare said.
Celebrities endorsing misleading ads can be fined up to ₹10 lakh by the consumer protection authority. For repeat offences, the authority can impose a fine of up to ₹50 lakh and a jail term of up to five years.
Although the guidelines do not define a celebrity, the term is commonly understood to be a well-known or a famous person, such as actors or sportspersons.
An advertisement will be considered non-misleading and valid only when it meets a set of criteria laid down in the new rules. These include “truthful representations” that don’t “exaggerate accuracy, scientific validity or practical usefulness or capability or performance”.
An ad can also not present rights already given to consumers under the law as a distinctive feature of the product, the rules state, and cannot conceal important facts about products or services or risks associated with their use.
The new guidelines ban surrogate advertising, a practice where a seller promotes a product whose advertisement is not allowed by disguising it as another product. Liquor ads commonly indulge in such practices — under the guise of selling soda, CDs, and even holiday packages.
“No surrogate advertisement or indirect advertisement shall be made for goods or services whose advertising is otherwise prohibited or restricted by law, by circumventing such prohibition or restriction and portraying it to be an advertisement for other goods and services the advertising of which is not prohibited by law,” the new rules state.
The government has taken a large number of actions on various products — from shirts to paints — that purportedly showed Covid-protection quality, the official cited in the second instance said.
“We have been working closely with the consumer affairs ministry and a co-regulation model will work better to improve standards of consumer advertising,” said a spokesperson for the Advertising Standards Council of India.
Public relations firms declined to comment on the matter.
Abhishek A Rastogi, partner at law firm Khaitan & Co, said, “There are already legal provisions against misleading ads. Many companies and celebrities are conscious of their social image; hence their advertisements and endorsements are in conformity with established social norms. But, some of them are exceptions. Some celebrities do endorse products without conducting due diligence, but not all of them. Ideally, self-regulation on the principle of ‘Maximum Governance, Minimum Government’ should have been tried before resorting to stringent penal provisions.”
