Advertisers start compliance with 'self-declaration certificate' norm, more than 6K entries uploaded
Around 6,000 self-declaration certificates (SDCs) were uploaded for digital and print ads on the Press Council of India portal and more than 700 SDCs for the TV and radio ads on the Ministry of Broadcasting portal. However, around 20% of these submissions were the testers and dummies as advertisers still navigate the mechanism.
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As the Self-Declaration Certificate (SDC) mechanism came into effect starting June 18th, advertisers have begun compliance with the Supreme Court directive which is aiming to curb the menace of misleading ads and false claims.
Around 6,000 SDCs were uploaded on the Press Council of India's portal and around 700 on the Broadcast Seva portal that were set up by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting.
Following the Supreme Court directive in its Order dated May 7, 2024, that all advertisers/ advertising agencies must submit a SDC before publishing or broadcasting any advertisement, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) made it mandatory and introduced a new feature on the Broadcast Seva Portal of the MIB for TV and Radio Advertisements and on Press Council of India’s portal for Print and Digital/Internet Advertisements, in the beginning of this month.
The certificate, signed by an authorised representative of the advertiser/advertising agency, needs to be submitted through these portals.
Marketers and ad agencies generated these SDCs amid challenges and concerns raised by industry stakeholders around the tight deadline of implementation, and the portal being 'laggy'.
Advertisers across categories such as FMCG, automobile, broadcasters, BFSI, consumer durables, and D2C players submitted the SDCs.
On the PCI portal, the advertisers' list included Emami's Dermicool, Hyundai, GMR, Daawat Basmati, Nestle's Maggi, and D2C players like Country Delight, Slurrp.
BFSI clients included HDFC Life, Bajaj Allianz Life, BharatPe, Upstox, etc.
Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) also took to the portal to upload a declaration of ASCI Course on 'the responsible advertising course'.
Among broadcasters on the MIB portal, Star India Pvt Ltd generated more than 20 SDCs.
Advertisers and stakeholders earlier told Storyboard18 how uploading SDC for each ad could not only be a herculean task but disrupt speed and innovation, especially for the digital players, given how on digital media hundreds and thousands of iterations are executed and optimised dynamically based on performance.
However, it is to be noted that around 20% of the SDCs so far were testers and dummies. This reflects how advertisers are still navigating their way through the portal.
Digital platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X run lakhs of ads per day. As per TAM Media Research data of last year, nearly 34 crore ads were released in internet/digital media by 1,30,000 advertisers. In print 30 lakh ads were released by 1,51,000 advertisers and in TV 8.6 crore ads were released by 8,000 advertisers in a year.
Given the scale of advertising in the country, advertisers shared that the timeline for implementation is very tight, giving very little time to test the portal and the process.
Over the last two weeks, industry bodies including the Indian Society of Advertisers, the Indian Broadcasting & Digital Foundation, among others have written to MIB to extend the compliance period by 45 days and even met the Ministry, but no resolution was achieved.
On July 9 the MIB will be submitting an affidavit on the actions taken so far on SDC in the top court. It will also have the opportunity to present reactions of stakeholders to the mandatory SDC directive and mechanism, and their representations.
