Surrogate Advertising
Introduction
Harmeen Soch policy is interested in dialog regarding governmental regulation and "indirect" advertising of controversial products
: : : Posting
There has been a lot of debate on surrogate advertising in general and has recently been a cause of concern for India where the government itself seems to be having shifts in its policy regarding indirect advertising of controversial products.
UB Group is an INR 17,500 million company in India. ‘Kingfisher’ beer is one of its best sellers and holds almost 50% of the market share. Four years back UB Group launched its airlines (Kingfisher Airlines) using the same slogan as it did for beer – ‘king of good times’. With many lawsuits being slapped against it for indulging into surrogate advertising, the court decided to acquit them of all charges saying that the products in question are totally unrelated and that it cannot be established that people are incited to drink beer when they see ads of Kingfisher Airlines. But the government has not allowed advertisements of McDowell’s (another liquor brand of UB Group) cricket balls and bats considering it a form of surrogate advertising.
Similarly, ‘Wills’ a cigarette brand of Imperial Tobacco Company of India (ITC) for years, recently began manufacturing lifestyle clothing using the same brand name. The government lifted ban on advertising Wills Lifestyle Clothing line as well.
The information and Broadcasting Minister of India, Sushma Swaraj says that they will decide on a case-to-case basis whether an ad is an example of surrogate advertising or not. She said, "Where a product is being manufactured and a brand has been built around it by the liquor company, advertising for that product will not be considered as surrogate advertising and will be permitted but where the product is not being manufactured in substantial quantities, it will be seen as surrogate advertising and will be disallowed".
There just seems to be a lot of grey area and no clear rules in this issue. How do we know that a brand extension is a genuine attempt by a company to go in for a new product category? And where exactly do we draw the line and say that yes, this is a surrogate ad and another one isn’t? Is it about the scale of operations of the company? Is it about intent behind advertising? And if yes, how do we measure that intent? Is there any literature that clearly establishes norms for surrogate advertising?
Any thoughts on this may be sent to me at meenu_soch@yahoo.com
Harmeen Soch
Assistant Professor
Department Of Commerce & Business Management,
Guru Nanak Dev University,
Amritsar 143 005
India