APL Apollo Tubes Limited - APL Apollo Tubes Limited

Recommendation: Not Upheld | Medium: Suo Motu - NAMS (TAMS)

The ASCI had approached the advertiser for its response in addressing the objections raised in the complaint. The advertiser was offered an option to seek an Informal Resolution (IR) of the complaint by modifying or withdrawing the claim in the advertisement, or alternately to substantiate the claim with supporting data. The advertiser was also offered an opportunity for a telecon with the ASCI Secretariat, which they did not avail and replied seeking for an extension of additional seven days to submit their response.

As a special gesture, the advertiser was granted the additional seven day extension as requested.

The advertiser in their response stated that the relevant product market for the claim is the manufacture and sale of structural steel tubes in India. The claim has been supported by verifiable comparative data relating to the advertiser's structural steel tube business vis-à-vis other principal companies operating in the same segment in India. The data has been compiled from publicly available records of the respective companies, namely their audited financial statements and annual reports, stock exchange filings, investor presentations and official websites with an individual source citation recorded against each company.

The advertiser further stated that it had sought the execution of the Celebrity Due Diligence Undertaking from the celebrity (Amitabh Bachchan) through his authorised representatives. The executed undertaking was presently awaited, and would be placed on record upon receipt.

As claim support data, the advertiser provided comparative data on installed manufacturing capacity and revenue of companies operating in the structural steel tube segment in India.

The advertiser further submitted independent equity research reports authored by SEBI-registered Research Analysts.

The advertiser’s response, along with the claim support data, was referred to an independent technical expert of ASCI for their opinion.

The expert opinion was subsequently shared with the advertiser to allow them to make additional submissions.

The advertiser held an online meeting with the ASCI Secretariat and the technical expert to discuss its submissions and subsequently responded to the queries raised in the expert opinion.

The advertiser submitted revised comparative data covering installed manufacturing capacity, annual production volume and revenue of companies operating in the structural steel tube segment in India. The advertiser stated that the claim was substantiated on all three metrics and that the leadership position was not marginal or metric-dependent.

The advertiser provided supporting material comprising comparative data on installed capacity, annual production volume and revenue, extracts relating to unlisted companies, and datasets for unlisted companies downloaded through the MCA portal.

The additional submissions made by the advertiser were shared with the technical expert for final opinion.

The Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) viewed the Facebook advertisement

(https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?id=3022142567990523), considered the complaint, the advertiser’s response along with the claim support data, and the expert’s final opinion presented at the meeting.

The CCC observed that the advertiser provided an Excel file showing capacity, sales volume and sales value, along with annual reports of some structural steel companies. They also submitted additional information from statutory filings and annual reports obtained from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

The CCC further observed that the advertiser compared its installed capacity, annual production and sales turnover with those of other companies in the structural steel tube industry. Most of the large companies manufacturing structural steel tubes had been considered in the comparison. A few smaller companies had not been included, but

these companies were smaller in size and hence did not contend for the No. 1 position.

The CCC discussed that the advertiser in their initial submissions had relied on statutory filings, magazine articles and the respective companies’ websites as sources for the data. The data from statutory filings was accepted as authentic, while the data obtained from magazine articles and the respective companies’ websites was not considered authentic. The advertiser had also made assumptions to estimate annual production and sales volume,

which varied from company to company, and the reasons for such variation were not provided. The research reports were neither independent nor comprehensive in terms of the data compiled for the industry, and some of the data was inconsistent or outdated.

Subsequently, the advertiser provided data from statutory filings and annual reports obtained from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs for the companies whose data had earlier been sourced from magazine articles or company websites. The CCC noted that, on comparison of the data, the advertiser’s sales volume and sales value were higher than those of the companies considered for comparison. The production capacities of these companies were also lower than that of the advertiser and, where sales data was available, the advertiser’s company led in terms of sales volume and sales value.

Based on the above assessment, the CCC concluded that the claim, “Build with the ultimate combination of modern design and unmatched durability from India's No. 1 structural steel tube company”, was substantiated. The said claim is not in contravention of Chapter I of the ASCI Code. This complaint was NOT UPHELD.