ADVERTISING IN HYPERBOLE

If you ever happen to walk through the Dum Dum Cantonment railway station in Kolkata, you might hear an herbs seller making an astonishing claim. In his pitch he mentions that the herb he sells can even heal your broken heart. Some may say that it is worth a try, given its affordability, and the rate at which we actually tend to get heartbroken in daily life. But while such a claim could be amusing, the absurdity of it is downright outrageous. Especially when similar tall claims come from big corporates, and established brands.
Advertisement is considered the most effective tool for introducing a new product to a large audience. By advertising a product well, a brand can penetrate into a new user base, and thereby create new markets. Today, brands have multiple products in almost every category, and everyone feels the need to be different. So, to stand out of the clutter, brands normally try to promote their products in innovative ways. While doing so, some brands unfortunately cross the line and end up making puffed-up claims, and this can potentially mislead consumers.

To curb the menace of misleading advertisements and to protect the consumers, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) under the Department of Consumer Affairs, recently notified ‘Guidelines for Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements, 2022.’ The guidelines seek to ensure that consumers are not being fooled with unsubstantiated claims, exaggerated promises, misinformation and false claims. In case of the violation of the guidelines CCPA can impose penalty of up to Rs 10 lakh on manufacturers, advertisers and endorsers, and can prohibit the endorsers from making any endorsement for up to 1 year. For subsequent contraventions, they may impose a penalty of up to Rs 50 lakh and can extend the prohibition up to 3 years.

We can cite several examples of brands whose claims were not exactly taken in good spirit by the consumers, and those which received a backlash on social media in the recent past. Irrespective of whether or not they can deliver on the promises made, on face value they certainly didn’t have many takers for their idea.
Take food delivery service, Zomato for example. The company announced that it would deliver food to its customers in record 10 minutes, which lead to netizens having a field day on social media, as they went about trolling the brand. Yet another example is Patanjali Ayurved that created a controversy by claiming that its Coronil tablets cured Covid-19 in seven days. The brand was trolled by netizens when the Indian Medical Association (IMA) termed it as a ‘blatant lie.’

“During Covid-19, a lot of unrelated brands tried to connect with the idea of immunity. There were claims like ‘germ proof,’ ‘bacteria proof,’ among others. Those brands just tried to cash in on the pandemic. We found them irrelevant and socially irresponsible,” says Sagar Kapoor, Chief Creative Officer at MullenLowe Lintas Group.
Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), which closely monitors the industry, has taken action against scores of brands for making such tall claims and producing misleading ads. With the coming of social media, consumers’ awareness has also increased, and online criticism of such brands is commonplace now. But time and again, we have seen brands coming up with irrational claims and finding themselves in trouble.

According to industry insiders, the promotion of a product with unrealistic advertisements is actually unwise. Rohit Malkani, National Creative Director at L&K Saatchi & Saatchi says, “To prove their superiority, some brands may present exaggerated and contorted figures, data or claims. But when that is exposed, they lose credibility. We have to remember that even today, word-of-mouth is a strong way to completely discredit a brand. If you try a product and tell me that it does not work, I will absolutely believe you.”

Ambi Parameswaran, independent brand strategist and brand coach says that some brands make such unrealistic claims hoping that they will get away with that, and there will be no legal action against them, “A good company will make a claim only if it is valid, because they don’t want to get into legal troubles. So when they make a claim, they put a yardstick for safety. For example, they will deliver in 10 minutes but that is only for 50 items and in certain PIN codes. They know that if ASCI asks them to withdraw an ad, it would be an embarrassment for them. But for the companies who are making all kinds of claims, it does not matter.”

Sanjay Tripathy, Founder at Agilio Labs and Insurtech Consultant, believes that there are mainly three reasons behind such false claims. “Firstly, people are not aware of the benchmarks or metrics used by a brand for a particular product category. Secondly, the existing regulations are not enforced rigorously. Thirdly, the consequences are not tough enough to act as deterrents. The time span of most of the campaigns is four to eight weeks. By the time ASCI finds out an unrealistic claim, the campaign period is over,” he says.

Apart from unrealistic claims, there are many other ways of misleading the consumer. Tripathy says, “If you see, most brands don’t say that they add sugar to their honey. But in reality, certain brands are manufacturing synthetic honey where sugar is added. Likewise, you will find some brands claiming that if you use their hair oil, your hair will re-grow. Have you ever seen anyone re-growing hair by using an oil? ASCI is taking actions against only the obvious violations, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. This menace can be stopped with stricter punishments, and by increasing consumer awareness.”

While several brands make false claims to grab the attention of consumers, there are brands that never violate the norms. For them their credibility is above any short-term goals created by gimmicks.
Sheena Kapoor, Head Marketing, Corporate Communications & CSR, ICICI Lombard says, “Today consumers are smart to sniff out inauthentic brands from the authentic ones. Insurance is a highly regulated industry, and we are very conscious about the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) norms. Without prior approval from our internal legal and compliance team, there is no communication that goes out from any stakeholder on to any platform. So, there is no way of going past with a communication that does not meet the standards set by IRDA.”
Ramalingam S, Brand, Marketing and Communications Head at CoinDCX, believes that marketers have immense power and therefore a huge responsibility towards their customers and their brands. “As an organization, we have always focused on complete transparency and authenticity in our communications. Our education portal was launched before we launched our consumer facing app. We were sure that we wanted to focus on large scale education before we focus on large scale marketing.”

Shashank Sinha, Vice President at Transformation, Strategy and Marketing at Ureka Forbes says, “Unrealistic claims often backfire as they erode the confidence of the consumers. At times even established brands face actions for making such claims. On an average, ASCI receives 80 complaints every month. Certain complaints come due to brand rivalry, but that constitutes only 10-15% of the total complaints. Brands are built over time through consistency, and hence the marketers should stay away from making such claims.”

Organic India, a leading brand of organic herbal and Ayurvedic health products, says that they are very particular about integrity, honesty, and credibility. Akila Chandrasekar, Head Marketing of Organic India, said, “We underplay a lot of claims. Even though Ayurveda says that Arjuna is good for heart, and Amla is good for vitamin C, we do not claim that. We don’t say that if you consume our products, you will never get a disease. We say that our products are therapeutic and preventive in nature. Some brands create controversy to get better publicity. But as a marketer, I believe that in the long run it will always have a negative impact.”
According to Alok Agarwal, CMO, Orientbell Tiles, “When false claims are exposed, the target audience finds it difficult to trust the brand. So it can result in losing loyal customers. We put consumers first, and go through a lot of effort in testing, and vetting the claims before they go out to the market. It is important to retain and build on the trust that the brand enjoys with its customers.”
With brands making such hard to believe claims in this Digital era where the public is equipped with a world of knowledge, it is not long before reputed brands fail to impress consumers, and face an uphill task of re-capturing their lost market.