The Advertising Standards Council of India’s (ASCI) Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) has upheld complaints (report) against 54 out of 84 advertisements brought to it in September. These adverts belonged to various categories: 13 in personal and healthcare, 7 in education, 7 in telecom and broadband, 6 in ecommerce and 15 from other categories. 6 out of the 7 complaints in telecom and broadband were against the Bharti Airtel and Bharti Softbank group: - Airtel’s claim in the ad “We at Airtel are giving away exciting surprises to all our broadband users”, was misleading because it did not add a disclaimer for the qualifying conditions under which users could claim them. - Airtel 4G’s claim in the offer of, “Get the same data benefits as your 3G pack and enjoy superfast 4G speeds at no extra cost”, “FREE 4G UPGRADE”, was misleading because it did not specify a disclaimer with the benefits of the retail plans, which were not applicable for corporate plan users. - Airtel 4G- My Plan Infinity ad claimed “Unlimited Calls, Unlimited Movies, Unlimited Music and Loads of data”, which was false and misleading, while the disclaimer was not clearly visible. - For the same plan, the website mentioned multiple terms and conditions where the calls were capped at 5,000 minutes per month and were hence not “unlimited”. The claim “Unlimited Calling, only with Airtel 4G” was found false and misleading. - Airtel said that its 4G ad super was 12 pixel, which is ASCI’s minimum size limit. ASCI said…
