Sandeep Goyal urges ASCI to “Stay Vigilant” for alco-bev surrogate advertising during Cricket WC

With the onset of the ICC Cricket World Cup, for which many of alco-bev brands have come aboard as sponsors, as a result of which, they have also created a wide array of fan experiences.

This has caught the attention of Sandeep Goyal, Chairman and MD, Rediffusion, who has been crusading against the nemesis of dubious surrogate ads for years now.

In an open letter addressed to the newly appointed Chairman and Vice Chairman of Advertising Standards Council of India, Saugata Gupta and Partha Sinha, he urged the self regulatory body of advertising in India to “Stay Vigilant” as the ICC Cricket World Cup is all set to begin today.

Citing media reports, in his letter to ASCI, he mentioned that while Bira 91, Royal Stag and Jacob’s Creek have signed up as ICC partners and the list of sponsors of the official World Cup broadcaster/digital platform Disney Star includes brands such as Pernod Ricard, Kingfisher, Black & White and Diageo, it is evident that all the aforementioned brands would be gearing up for significant brand visibility during the mega event.

“To me, each one of these brands appears to be a liquor brand. Or so they are sold in the market to consumers,” he opined.

With this he also drew attention to the prevailing Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, Rule 7(2)(viii) which clearly prohibits the direct or indirect promotion and advertisement of cigarettes, tobacco products, wine, alcohol, liquor or other intoxicants and where in the advertisement are not to use particular colours and layout or presentations associated with the prohibited products.

“Past experience shows that liquor brands have been masquerading as water, soda, bar accessories, and as they get more innovative and creative are being peddled as books or 0.0% alcohol or ale or AI fan experiences, and more– all flimsy surrogates to circumvent the Law,” he added.

Additionally, he also emphasised that it was because of his untiring crusade to bring erring brands to book on usage of false surrogates, ASCI finally took action in January 2021.

“Following the liquor brand extension ads that appeared during the IPL on television and OTT platforms, ASCI took up 14 complaints. In two cases, the advertisers apparently agreed to withdraw the advertisements immediately. The other 12 cases were taken to ASCI's Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) and issued notices,” he mentioned in the letter.

At the time, he mentioned that even Manisha Kapoor, Secretary General, ASCI went on record to say, “All these advertisements were found to be in violation of the ASCI code, as advertisers failed to convince the CCC that these were genuine brand extensions, or that they did not have direct or indirect cues of the category whose advertising is restricted or prohibited.”

Furthermore, he also shared the viewpoint that the last IPL was relatively free of surrogate advertising, at least on television (most brands continued to flout the guidelines on digital, though).

“But from the long list of ICC and Disney Star sponsors, it is clear that the various liquor brands are again lining up for big time action – presumably using dubious and questionable surrogates,” he pointed out.

Notably, this is not the first time that the adman wrote to ASCI regarding the pressing issue of surrogate advertising of alcohol.

Earlier, he also wrote open letters to former ASCI Chairpersons Abanti Sankaranarayanan and Subhash Kamath on the issue.

“My missives to Abanti and my various exchanges with Subhash are part of the public record,” he mentioned.

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