by Surrogate Advertising
The term “surrogate advertising” refers to duplicating the brand image of one product extensively to promote another product of the same brand. Surrogate products like playing cards, soda water bottles apple juices etc. often being used to promote liquor and tobacco related brands normally do not actually exist or even if they exist, they are manufactured as “limited edition” i.e. in very small numbers.
The concept of surrogate advertising is believed to have started from UK, where the housewives protested “Siql advertisements as they felt that those ads were weaning their husbands away from them- in order to combat this resistance, the liquor manufacturers started advertising harmless products like fruit juices, sodas under the same brand name as that of popular liquors.
Currently tobacco and liquor ads are banned from TV and radio in India. The print media allows only tobacco ads with statutory warning of “cigarette smoking is injurious to health.” The Government of India amended Cable TV Act in order to curb advertisements, which promoted directly or indirectly the promotion, sales or consumption of cigarettes, other tobacco products like gutkha, pan masala, liquors like wine, alcohol, any other intoxicants, breast milk substitution products like feeding bottle or infant food.
This led to increase in surrogate advertisements of liquor and various tobacco-related products. Surrogate advertisements mostly pay the role of reinforcing brand recall rather than inducing consumption and help major tobacco and liquor brands to remain alive in the minds of the consumers.
Sand Piper Malt Beverage:
ASCI also upheld a suo motu complaint against United Breweries for an advertisement for Sand Piper Malt Beverage created by Triton Communications. This was obviously surrogate advertising for a liquor brand.
Tobacco Products:
When the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) withdrew its code to regulate tobacco products, consumer activists were concerned over the impact of the move.
The issue has taken a new twist with the Central Government deciding to ban tobacco companies from sponsoring sports and cultural events. Similar curbs have been enforced on advertising of liquor products Apart from a ban on smoking in public places, sale of tobacco products to minors will be prohibited, once the proposed bill is passed.
However, experts believe that the ban won’t work, firstly – because it is not clear how surrogate advertising will be checked and secondly because the agencies, which can implement these measures, including NGOs, lack enough teeth.
The ASCI, even while admitting the sensitivity of the issue, feels the government has overreacted. A couple of years ago, when the strong tobacco lobby opposed the Council guidelines, it had hastily withdrawn them inviting activists’ ire. They felt that the ASCI virtually surrendered to the whims of the industry by abdicating its responsibility and allowing manufacturers to resort to unfair advertisement techniques, sans any checks. According to them, India has failed to initiate a comprehensive tobacco- control strategy in keeping with the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines.
Tobacco Institute of India (TII), the representative body of tobacco farmers, exporters, cigarette manufactures and ancillary industries, contended that it would stick to its own code. A watchdog body, comprising experts from all fields, was to overview its observance. Curiously, the code bore resemblance to the ASCI code. The industry showed scant respect for it and it was violated often, an ASCI member reveals. Contrary to the provisions, a cigarette manufacturer featured a leading film star in its campaign with a slogan ‘Red & White smokers are one of its kind’.
Consumer activist, N G Wagle, says, “The ASCI works in tandem with the media to build pressure on advertisers to follow fair practices. If the tobacco industry was really serious about following any norms, they would have let the earlier code continue. Why was a new code needed, when ASCI had one?” he asks.
Opinions are divided regarding the Government’s latest ban move. The fine of mere Rs.100 is just not enough, some say, whereas advertising agencies have taken a stance that it’s unfair to ban advertising, since the product itself is not banned. “If the product will continue to be produced and marketed, there is no point in restricting its advertising,” they generally feel.
Also, as stated above, there are no means to check surrogate advertising. Tobacco major, ITC has come up with Gold Flake ‘expression greeting cards’. Wills has registered its sportswear as a new business entity.
TII states that tobacco, being a legal product, freedom of commercial expression should be permitted and that the consumption of tobacco products should be an informed personal choice for adults only.
“Tobacco Product” means leaf tobacco or any product containing tobacco which is sold in India and includes bidis, chewing tobacco, cigarettes, cigars, cheroots, chutta, gutka, khaini, snuff, pan- masala with tobacco, zarda, kiwam, gadaku, hand rolled tobacco, hookah tobacco, so on and so forth.
There is a growing public concern regarding increasing consumption of tobacco, its health implications and the need to prevent access to minors and non-users.
Some Quick facts:
Cigarettes cause about 6.35 lakh deaths in India every year.
About 33 per cent of cancer cases are attributed to tobacco consumption.
However, cigarettes alone account for roughly 10% of excise collections.
Tobacco trade is a major contributor to the national exchequer.
So obviously, there is clear conflict between health and economic interests of the country.
Before the ban on advertising and on smoking in .public places? various approaches have been adopted to address these concerns, ranging from legislation of varying degrees of severity to voluntary codes and self-regulation, but they have seldom worked. Activist point out that the recent advertisement- monitoring panel formed to implement the ban on transmission of tobacco advertisements on TV channels, including private ones, was ineffective in fulfilling the task.
As stated above, TII wants to stick to its self-voluntary code and going by that, keeping a tab on tobacco advertising is not going to be easy.
Comparative Advertising
Comparative advertising or advertising war is an advertisement in which a particular product, or service, specifically mentions a competitor by name for the express purpose of showing why the competitor is inferior to the product naming it. Also referred to as “knocking copy”, it is loosely defined as advertising where “the advertised brand is explicitly compared with one or more competing brands and the comparison is obvious to the audience.”
This should not be confused with parody advertisements, where a fictional product is being advertised for the purpose of poking fun at the particular advertisement, nor should it be confused with the use of a coined brand name for the purpose of comparing the product without actually naming an actual competitor. (“Wikipedia tastes better and is less filling than the Encyclopedia Galactica.”)
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) defined comparative advertising as “advertisement that compares alternative brands on objectively measurable attributes or price, and identifies the alternative brand by name, illustration or other distinctive information.” This definition was used in the case Gillette Australia Pty Ltd v Energizer Australia Pty Ltd. Similarly, the Law Council of Australia recently suggested that comparative advertising refers to “advertising which include reference to a competitor’s trademark in a way which does not impute proprietorship in the mark to the advertiser.”
Comparative advertisements could be either indirectly or directly comparative, positive or negative, and seeks “to associate or differentiate the two competing brands”. Different countries apply differing views regarding the laws on comparative advertising.
Comparative advertising has been increasingly implemented through the years, and the types of comparative advertising range from comparing a single attribute dimension, comparing an attribute unique to the target and absent in the referent and comparisons involving attributes unique to both brands. The contributing factors to the effectiveness of comparative advertising include believability, which refers to the extent a consumer can rely on the information provided in comparative advertisements, the level of involvement, and the convenience in evaluation, provided by spoon feeding the consumer with information that does not require extra effort in recall.
Comparative advertising is generally coupled with negativity, as evidenced by early industry condemnation. Stating reasons such as participation in comparative advertising damaged the honour and credibility of advertising. Studies have suggested that negative information can be stored more effectively, thus generating the impact that any advertisement is purposed for, and more importantly, strong recall. On the contrary, such negativity can either be transferred directly to the brand and the consumer’s impression of the brand, various studies through the years have proven that comparative advertising has been responded to negatively.
