Unwanted-72, I-Pill TVCs under ASCI scanner

Rahul Kapoor - Televisionpoint.com | New Delhi
Following concerns of promoting certain drugs as regular contraceptives and misrepresent abortion, two television commercials (TVCs) of morning-after pills have been placed under the scanner of the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI).

The first TVC is of Unwanted-72, a product of Mankind Pharma Ltd; and the second ad is for I-Pill, a offering from drug maker Cipla Ltd. These two ads are already upheld by the Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) as the manufacturers of these two brands have TVCs in recent months pushing the morning-after pills as a means to be free of tension after inter-course.

Alan Collaco, secretary general, ASCI, said, "We have received about five complaints on these ads and the matter is currently with the CCC, which will take a call on whether it should be pulled off the air."

Morning-after pills were introduced last year in India as an over-the-counter drug available without a prescription. The measure triggered much debate in the sexually conservative country with critics arguing the easy availability of pills would encourage promiscuity among the millions of young people.

Like most compelling technologies, the morning-after pills delivers undeniable utility accompanied with consequences that are not immediately apparent. It has the power to prevent unwanted pregnancies, if taken up to 72 hours after the act, and carries few side-effects.

Ram Teke, deputy drug controller general of India (DCGI), said, "We have ethical concerns about these advertisements, they are not projecting the message clearly that these pills are emergency contraceptives and not regular contraceptives. We are awaiting the responses from the companies."

"The campaign is trying to create awareness among youth that abortion is not the only route if no precaution was used. I don't see anything objectionable in the message." said Dhaval Vyas, manager of the Unwanted-72 account at Prachar Communications, which has created the ad.

Vyas explains that unlike the pill, which arguably fueled the idea of women's liberation in the sixties, and has been available in India for a very long time without having a noticeably dramatic impact, there is something about the Unwanted-72 that makes it particularly significant in the Indian context.

"The pill is useful for sexually active women for it needs to be taken every day. Unwanted-72, on the other hand, works retrospectively, and is ideal for initiates and experimenters. The Unwanted-72 is packaged forgiveness, an eraser of mistakes, a restorer of things as they were. It is a spur to experimentation as it smoothes over the last hurdle when things begin to go too far." Vyas says.

Network Advertising, the advertising agency that created the I-Pill ad also defended it. "We don't find nothing offensive about the the way the message is projected in the I-Pill ad." says an spokesperson for the agency.

"Given the nature of the Indian reality, where sex is still a throaty promise or a clumsy fumble, the pills provide a pathway to experimentation paved with the retrospective guarantee of status quo." says the Network Advertising official.

For the record, ASCI is the self-regulatory body of the advertising industry and its advice, following queries or complaints on advertisements released in the Indian media, is mostly followed by advertisers and their agencies.