Centre issues new guidelines for print, television and online advertisements; bans surrogate ads
New Delhi: The Central Government on Friday announced new guidelines to check misleading advertisements and endorsers by banning surrogate ads. The government also introduced strict norms for those advertisements that lure consumers by offering perks and free claims.
The new guidelines on "Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements, 2022" also seeks to regulate advertisements targeting children. The guidelines have been notified by the Consumer Affairs Ministry and have come into force with immediate effect. These also specify due diligence to be carried out while endorsing in advertisements.
As per the new guidelines, any violation will be considered as per the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act (CPA), which means a penalty of Rs 10 lakh for first offence and Rs 50 lakh for the subsequent one.
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Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh said: "Advertisements have great interest for consumers. Under the CCPA Act, there are provisions to handle misleading advertisements affecting consumers rights. But to make it more explicit, clear and aware to the industry, the government has come out with guidelines for fair advertising with effect from today."
The new guidelines would be applicable to advertisements published on all platforms such as print, television and online. These guidelines will also apply to government advertisements issued by PSUs engaged in providing consumer services.
The present guidelines define "bait advertisement", "surrogate advertisement" and clearly provides what constitutes as "free claim advertisements". Advertisement targeting children should not feature any personalities from the field of sports, music or cinema for products which under any law requires a health warning for such advertisement or cannot be purchased by children, says the new guidelines.
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Further, it provides that a disclaimer should be in the same language as the claim made in the advertisement and the font used in a disclaimer shall be the same as that used in the claim.
-PTC News with inputs from social media
