Marico’s Saugata Gupta named as ASCI Chairman

Saugata Gupta, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Marico Ltd, has been appointed new Chairman of the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), at the board meeting of the self-regulatory body. Gupta’s association with ASCI spans several years, including two years on the Board of Governors and four years as a special invitee on the Board of Governors.

Partha Sinha, president of response, Bennett Coleman & Company Limited, was elected vice chairman, and Sudhanshu Vats, deputy managing director, Pidilite Industries Ltd, was appointed honorary treasurer.

About the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI)

The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) is a voluntary self-regulatory organization of the advertising industry in India. Established in 1985, ASCI is registered as a non-profit company under section 25 of the Company Act.

• ASCI is committed to the cause of self-regulation in advertising, ensuring the protection of the interest of consumers. ASCI seeks to ensure that advertisements conform to its Code for Self-Regulation, which requires advertisements to be legal, decent, honest and truthful, and not hazardous or harmful while observing fairness in competition.
• ASCI looks into complaints across ALL MEDIA such as Print, TV, Radio, hoardings, SMS, Emailers, Internet/web-site, product packaging, brochures, promotional material and point of sale material etc. ASCI’s role has been acclaimed by various Government bodies including the Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA), Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), Ministry of AYUSH as well as the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
• The association with these Government bodies is to co-regulate and curb misleading and objectionable advertisements in the respective sectors.
• In January 2017, the Supreme Court of India in its judgement also affirmed and recognized the self-regulatory mechanism as an effective pre-emptive step to statutory provisions in the sphere of advertising content regulation for TV and Radio in India. ASCI is a part of the Executive Committee of International Council on Ad Self-Regulation (ICAS).
• Among several awards bestowed by the European Advertising Standards Alliance (EASA), ASCI bagged two Gold Global Best Practice Awards for the Mobile App “ASCIonline” (2016) and for reducing the time taken to process complaints (2013).

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