There is a famous cricket player endorsing an alcoholic drink brand – in fact the IPL team he captains is named after that alcohol brand. But he says he is endorsing only the brand’s ‘energy’ drink. A famous actor endorses a paan masala brand but says he is endorsing only the brand's cardamom product. Is this legit? It may be technically legal but is this morally right? Should celebrities be more responsible?
The government does not permit the advertisement of products that are bad or harmful for health, such as alcoholic beverages, cigarettes and bidis, chewing tobacco and products containing tobacco. So, manufacturers find ways to circumvent this legal ban. They create other products which are permitted to be advertised; but with the same brand name and advertise those.
So we have Virat Kohli promoting the energy drink from Royal Challenge. However, when the consumer hears RC and looks at the logo and characteristic colouring, it is the whisky that one thinks of.
Actor Ajay Devgn is seen to promote the Vimal brand – on radio, in print and TV ads. He tells us that it is elaichi – cardamom that he promotes and/or the paan masala that contains no tobacco. However, the advertising is rather ambiguous. After the ad, we also see/hear the statutory warning about paan masala being ‘injurious to health’.
The Kingfisher jingle and logo were synonymous with IPL at one point. We all recall those funny ads featuring Indian and international cricket trying to hum the jingle and supposedly getting it wrong. We all knew they were talking about the beer and not packaged water. We knew that they were telling us that beer was the king of good times; not water.
For some sportspersons /actors or other celebrities, endorsements could be a part of working contracts that they may not be able to legally get out of. So maybe M S Dhoni could not get out of promoting Seagram's Royal Stag whisky Mega Cricket?
The charge of doing surrogate advertising cannot be laid only at the door of celebs; many others do it too: Bacardi Blast music CDs and events instead of rum, Imperial Blue CDs instead of alcohol (remember, the ‘men will be men’ ads?) Bagpiper Club Soda instead of whisky, Officers Choice playing cards instead of whisky and so on.
No matter what fig leaf of respectability the marketers, manufacturers and endorsers try to cover it with, surrogate advertising does the job that regulations do not want it to. Surveys reveal that 42 out 50 people know what the actual product being advertised is: tobacco, cigarettes, paan masala etc. These surreptitious forms of advertising do influence buying decisions, increase brand recall and sales.
Well firstly the have to stop pretending that they are endorsing harmless sports drinks, CDs, cardamom and so on. Perhaps it would be best it they stopped endorsing such products altogether. Pierce Brosnan for instance, had endorsed a paan masala brand, but as soon as he found out that the product contained carcinogens such as tobacco, he withdrew from the endorsement. Maybe we cannot expect the same from all our celebs; after all, they are trying to make money by any legal means, like the rest of us.
Maybe it is up to the government to plug the legal loopholes that exist currently; which permit manufacturers to continue to advertise in this underhand manner. If the government really wanted to stop all advertisements for harmful products, there should be a law prohibiting the advertisement of the very brand associated with the product; not just the product. However, the political will to follow the spirit of the law and not merely the letter of the law has never been much in evidence. There has always been a willingness to permit corporates to exploit loopholes, for whatever reason.
So, for the time being, we shall continue to see adverts for Kingfisher club soda, Vimal elaichi, Carlsberg glasses, Seagrams events and so on. The bottom line is, surrogate advertising is legal; even if we may think it is morally wrong. It is too much to expect companies with a profit motive to behave morally and to self-regulate – isn’t it?
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