Arvind Sharma appointed Chairman of ASCI

Sharma replaces outgoing Chairman I. Venkat, Director - Eenadu

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | September 13, 2012

Arvind Sharma

At the Board Meeting of The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) held today, Arvind Sharma, Chairman of India Sub Continent, Leo Burnett, was unanimously elected Chairman of the Board of ASCI. As a member of the Board of Governors for seven years, he has provided active support to Self-Regulation in the Advertising movement.

Partha Rakshit, Proprietor, Partha Rakshit Associates, was elected Vice-Chairman; and Vikram Sakhuja, CEO-South Asia - Group M Media India, was re-appointed the Honorary Treasurer.

The other members of the new Board of Governors are: Advertisers:  Narendra Ambwani (Agro Tech Foods), Hemant Bakshi (Hindustan Unilever), Rajiv Dube (Aditya Birla Management Corporation), Shantanu Khosla (Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care), Media: Rajan Anandan (Google India), Sunil Lulla (Times Global Broadcasting Co.), Benoy Roychowdhury (HT Media), I. Venkat (Eenadu),   Advtg. Agencies: Subhash Kamath (BBH Comms India), Srinivasan Swamy (R.K. Swamy BBDO).  Allied Professions: Dilip Cherian (Perfect Relations), Dhananjay Keskar (IBS), Pranesh Misra (Brandscapes Consultancy P. Ltd.).

During the year 2011-12, the Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) met 16 times and considered 2,986 complaints against 176 advertisements. Of these, complaints against 103 ads were upheld, while 69 were not upheld and 4 were considered non-issues.  In 89 cases, the complaint upheld ads have been voluntarily withdrawn or modified as per the CCC's decisions resulting in over 86% compliance rate.

I. Venkat, Director - Eenadu , and the outgoing Chairman of ASCI said, “The last year has seen ASCI take various initiatives to strengthen the Self Regulatory System. These included increasing the frequency of Consumer Complaints Council to twice a month, introduction of the Fast Track Service, having a National Conference on Strengthening Self-Regulation of Advertising Content, engaging with young Creatives through a Mobile Film Contest at the Goafest, interacting with the Department of Consumer Affairs and participating in their Conferences on Misleading Advertisements. ASC has taken a giant leap forward in introducing the National Advertising Monitoring Service (NAMS) which monitors 1500 TV and 45000 newspaper Ads per month. All in all a very satisfying year for ASCI. ASCI is the first self regulatory body in the world to initiate monitoring of almost all newly released ads in print and TV nationally with NAMS.”

The incoming Chairman, Arvind Sharma said, “It is indeed an honour to be elected as Chairman of ASCI which has progressively contributed to effective Self-Regulation in Advertising content. We are confident that the Ad sector, industry bodies regulators, consumer activists and the general public will actively seek ASCI's services and take Self-Regulation forward.”

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com