The Advertising Standards Council of India’s (ASCI) Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) has upheld complaints (pdf) against 87 out of 117 advertisements brought to it in August. These adverts belonged to various categories: 37 in personal and healthcare, 41 in education and 9 from other categories. Under the others category: Bharti Airtel: Airtel Broadband’s ad claimed that it offers 60 GB at Rs 1099 with unlimited calls was not substantiated. It seems that customers approached ASCI for this particular scheme. For its ad in July, Airtel, while not banned from advertising its 4G ads, received a notice from ASCI to withdraw its 4G speed challenge advertisement on grounds that it is misleading. The claims in the ad, ‘Airtel 4G is the fastest network ever’ and ‘If your network is faster, we will pay your mobile bills for life’, was misleading by omission in the absence of appropriate disclaimers in the print, TV, hoarding advertisements” according to ASCI. Amazon Kindle’s ad claiming to offer Rs 1,000 off of the MRP of Rs 5,999 in a large prominent font was shown for a Kindle which costs Rs 8,999, thus misleading consumers. Note that for July 2015, a Kindle ad which did not put a disclaimer qualifying the price of the actual product being promoted, was also upheld by ASCI. City Broadband’s ad claiming “India's No.1 Leading Internet Service Provider”, was unsubstantiated, because it is not. Also read: ASCI calls out Bloomberg TV, EBay, Amazon, Jewelsouk & others for false advertisement ASCI calls out Flipkart,…
