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Experiments with 'truth'

In ad wars, brands are now resorting to smarter ways to prove their version of truth

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Recently advertisements have been the point of battle for brands such Amul, Hindustan Unilever (HUL), Airtel and Reliance Jio. While HUL has taken its battle with Amul to the Bombay High Court, Reliance Jio has registered a complaint with the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) against an ad of Airtel.

The Amul ad called 'Amul is Real Milk, Real Ice Cream' shows that since the product is made using milk it is a real ice-cream and not frozen desert made using "vanaspathi ghee", taking a dig at most of HUL's Kwality Wall's frozen deserts.

The Airtel ad, on the other hand, took a dig at competitor Reliance Jio by claiming that it is the fastest network by quoting a third party speed test company Ookla's results.

The lawyers of FMCG giant HUL recently argued in court that Amul's ads were guilty of disparaging frozen dessert. While Reliance Jio was vindicated as ASCI on March 31 as the self-regulatory body asked Airtel to withdraw or modify their fastest network ad.

Upholding the complaint filed by rival Reliance Jio Infocom, the ASCI said that the TV commercial (TVC) was "misleading" and "contravened Chapters" of its code as well as guidelines on disclaimers clauses. "We have advised the advertiser to modify appropriately or to withdraw the said TVC and the website advertisement by April 11, 2017," ASCI said in its order.

A bit earlier Baba Ramdev-led brand Patanjali Ayurveda had been engaged in a bitter ad war with competitor Dabur over its honey ad. It has also taken on many other large FMCG brands through its ads.

It is not an unusual sight for brands to bad mouth competitors in their ads. We have seen countless times in the past brands waging a war with competitors through their advertisements. For instance, in 2013 Reckitt Benckiser launched Dettol Kitchen cleaning products and created a TV ad which compared the cleaning product to HUL's Vim. HUL took it to Calcutta High Court for a stay order, saying that the ads were not true. But HUL was denied the order. However, HUL hit back with an ad on the front page of leading dailies claiming that Lifebuoy works better than Dettol antiseptic liquid.

Hyundai and Maruti Suzuki also saw their rivalry come alive through their ads as Hyundai came out with a marketing campaign in 2012 called 'Trendsetter vs Follower' which claimed that its EON was much superior than Alto 800 of Maruti Suzuki.

In 2010, HUL featured a P&G's Tide Natural pack prominently in a Rin commercial saying "Tide se kahin behtar safedi de Rin". Even HUL's Clinc All Clear shampoo ad spoofed P&G's Head & Shoulders product that year.

However, while many ads earlier directly showed their rival product or beeped the name, it seems that brands today have become much smarter in the game of ad wars. Take for instance, the recent controversial ads of Airtel and Amul. Both these ads neither mention, beep the name or show the rival products directly.

Both of the brands base their ads on proof to back their claim. For instance, Airtel used the Ookla certification to create the ad. While ASCI had disregarded Airtel's claim as it had only submitted Ookla certificate, it did not give the methodology.

Similarly, Amul is right in calling itself a real 'ice-cream' as by definition ice-cream is "a soft, sweet frozen food made with milk and cream" and not a frozen deserts which are made with vegetable oil.

While not using the competitor product or mentioning the brand name is just common sense, the second way of basing it on proof or fact is a much smarter way for brands to wage ad wars. So while brands get smarter at advertising wars, does it make the job of organisations such as ASCI or the High Courts harder?

Shweta Purandare, secretary general of ASCI said, "Not really. ASCI is a 30 year old organisation and the people working in it are those involved in the business of advertising". She said that according to the ASCI Code Chapter 4, brands can make claims against competitors. However, there has to be fairness in the claim against competition, it has to be factually correct and the brand has to able to substantiate its claim. Most importantly, "they should not denigrate other brands," she said.

Purandare says that they take tough decisions as they have sector specific exports who analyse these ads. They check the data from both parties thoroughly and look at what kind of testing agencies, research methodologies are used, whether scientific methods are used, where it is published, among others.

BROAD-CAST AWAY

  1. In 2013, Reckitt Benckiser created a TV ad which compared its kitchen cleaning product to HUL’s Vim
     
  2. HUL, when denied an order in HC, hit back with an ad that claimed Lifebuoy was better than Dettol antiseptic liquid
     
  3. Hyundai came out with a campaign which claimed that its EON was much superior to Alto 800 of Maruti Suzuki
     
  4. In 2010, HUL in an ad said “Tide se kahin behtar safedi de Rin” and also spoofed P&G’s Head & Shoulders
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