Who’s Afraid of ASCI?

While TV ads need to meet the code set by ASCI, no such rule applies to radio. As this emerging medium is not under the scanner, risqué and bold advertising flourishes.


Swapna sundari wearing maxi
Getting out of a yellow taxi
Walks into a club
Paagal ho gaye sab
Surprisingly she looked at me
And said
Is that a pen in your pocket Mister,
Or are you just happy to see me….

These are not controversial, cult Eminem lyrics or the foul expletives of the Pakistani band, ‘Zeist’ but the words of a radio ad for a fairly innocent-sounding Lexi pens. The man being addressed answers this question with “I am very, very sorry sexy, But now every pocket has a Lexi….”

Lexi Pens, according to the ad are de riguer in every pocket in New York. Besides being difficult to fathom why this fact is advertised in India, what’s really interesting is how the jingle hasn’t created a furore by now. If a corresponding commercial were to be on TV, activists and moral guardians would have long back found a summer job. There would have been a complaint filed with the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) and chances are the song would have to be altered.

TV ads are now under the scanner even more than before, given the amendment in the Cable & TV Act, that they have to follow the ASCI code. But radio seems top be a happy playground for risqué and politically incorrect humour. TV jungles and ads, mostly consumed by self-preoccupied teens and tweens or people looking for a sonorous relief to frustrating driving, haven’t yet got anyone’s heckles up.

Spend a few hours tuning in to radio and listen carefully to the ads. There’s a world of ideas and lyrics that would have been thrashed and objected to on other media. Objectionable humour or a laugh at disadvantaged, stereotypical groups is being used generously, perhaps to make up for the absence of the video element.

Take the following examples, for instance, of unsocial and politically incorrect ideas. The first is the ad for Pears Oil Control Soap. The ad features a boy seeking friendship with a girl who is not interested. The boy talks English like a “vernie” or vernacular if you aren’t cool enough to know that. He seeks Priya’s affections by saying “I waant to be ‘friend’ with you”. Priya of course gets impatient with him. The ad signs off saying that “chipchipey log” (sticky people) are as irritating as “chipchipee twachcha” (sticky skin). A parallel between the uncool and stickiness is drawn unapologetically.

And then there’s the other HLL ad for Sunsilk Gang of Girls site that highlights a social stereotype that women all over are trying to fight away. Introduced in the FIFA period, it shows what could be the significance of football terminology in the life of girls. Highlighting that “Girls are different”, the ad goes on to explain football terms. “Kick” is what you do to your boyfriend when he lands up late, “Pass” is what you do to bills you run up and “Goal” is when he actually gives you a diamond ring.

Humour takes yet a greater stretch of proportion by a channel ad that ran around the Independence Day. It asks a fellow, “Who composed the national anthem?” The fellow fumbles and umms and aaaws. He is then asked in the same rapid fire style, “Who composed Kajraa re kajraa re…?” This time he answers in a flash, “Shankar, Ehsaan Loy”. So what’s the message? That it is funny not to know simple, “patriotic” facts? Or is that current, popular music is of greater relevance? In either case such an ad on TV would have got a whole bunch of citizens excited enough to protest and probably a few editorial rips in newspapers.

Says Brian Tellis, founder Radio Active and an old radio hand,” Radio is a medium where you can paint pictures lot left to listener’s imagination”. It is powerful and hence can be used or misused.
However being the newest medium, it is perceived as small and no one is yet looking hard at it.

Says Sam Balsara, past president and Board member, ASCI, “ ASCI found a convenient handle in the C&S Act to contain TV advertising. But while ASCI watches every medium equally, no law is contravened if a radio jingle is found objectionable by us.”

The radio business is currently focussed on growth and expansion. The government has given out close to 300 licences in this second phase that will cover 90 cities. The industry is expected to grow in leaps and bounds. Radio ad spends, at the moment, account for two per cent of total ad spends in the country. Regulatory issues for content and for advertising will probably follow but much later.

But as it grows – radio is expected to grow exponentially in next 5-10 years according to a PwC report- these issues will gradually come in the spotlight. But until then, guess it will be, “bajaate raho…”

(This article appeared as the lead in Billboard, the weekly advertising and marketing page in Hindustan Times)