ASCI expands ad monitoring to digital platforms across F&B, healthcare and education sectors

MUMBAI: With complaints of alcoholic beverages ads on digital streaming services, the advertising industry watchdog Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has partnered with TAM Media Research to expand monitoring to digital media.

ASCI, which so far tracked only print and TV media for misleading ads, will be able to monitor over 3,000 digital media platforms under the partnership. The platforms will include search engines, video streaming, news portals as well as websites for interests like astrology and automobiles.

Initially, ASCI will track ads across food and beverage, healthcare and education sectors. As per data provided by ASCI, these three sectors alone accounted for 79% of the complaints processed by the council last year.

“We live in a world that’s becoming more digital by the day, so a lot of marketing is shifting to such platforms. For a self-regulatory body, it makes sense to expand our monitoring of the offline space to include the online space as well,” said Rohit Gupta, chairman, ASCI.

According to Gupta, ASCI is the only self-regulatory organisation in the world that does such extensive and on-going monitoring of advertising. “We couldn’t have asked for a better partner than TAM – its reputation and wide experience will help us achieve our mission to enhance trust in advertising and to ensure that our ethical code is adhered to.”

Between TV, print and now digital platforms, ASCI said it will monitor ads worth over 80% of annual ad spends.

As per various estimates, advertisers are spending almost 30% of their total media spends on digital media as it provides better targeting.