In an effort to protect customers from false and misleading claims, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) said that advertisers will need to back up large claims with evidence that they can attract penal action.
“It appears that false claims are made to mislead the consumers for selling of the promotion of their products by taking advantage of the ongoing pandemic situation in the country,” the CCPA said in an advisory. It added that making misleading and false claims to sell products will be viewed as an unfair trade practice and will be liable for penal action ranging from the imprisonment of up to 2 years or a fine of Rs 10 lakh.
The CCPA advisory comes in the backdrop of a spike in advertisement campaigns of food and dietary supplements touting products as something which can “kill 99.9 germs”, is “100% swadeshi” or can “boost immunity”.
As per TAM Media Research, television advertisements for hand sanitisers grew by almost 100 percent between January and July 2020, according to an ET report.
In 2020, due to the pandemic, TV advertising for personal care and hygiene products accounted for 20% of the overall volume of advertising.
Many brands in food, personal care, hygiene, mattresses and even apparel segments have promoted their over-the-top effectiveness.
The Advertising Standards Council (ASCI) attempted to reign in practice without much success in the toothless advertising self-regulatory body, but CCPA can guarantee compliance. In the digital space, ASCI has banned over 650 advertisements in relation to Covid-19, according to the ET report, which it found to be misleading.
The objective of the CCPA is to promote, protect and enforce the rights of consumers as a class. It will be empowered to conduct investigations into consumer rights violations and to file complaints or prosecutions, to order the recall of unsafe goods and services, to order the discontinuation of unfair commercial practices and misleading advertising, to impose penalties on producers, supporters, publishers
