Welspun Living Limited - Welspun

Recommendation: Upheld | Medium: General Public

The ASCI had approached the advertiser (Welspun Living Limited) and the influencer (Ojaswita Vij) [yourselves] for their respective responses in addressing the grievances of the complainant and forwarded the details of the complaint, verbatim, to the advertiser and the influencer with a request to respond to the same. The advertiser and the influencer were also offered an opportunity for a telecon with the ASCI Secretariat, which they did not avail and neither did they submit their written response. The Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) viewed the LinkedIn advertisement (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ojaswita-vij-6b43182b7_welspunliving-esg-purposeled-activity-7424414664278745088-AUP8/ ) and considered the complaint. The CCC noted that there was no response from the advertiser and the influencer. The CCC observed that the LinkedIn post does not carry any disclosure labels as appropriate to the post, such as “Advertisement”, "Ad", "Sponsored", "Collaboration", “Partnership”, "Employee", "Free Gift", “Affiliate”. The influencer / advertiser has not disclosed details regarding any material connection, monetary or non-monetary between themselves nor indicated whether the influencer was paid to post the details of the advertiser’s product or services. Based on these observations, the CCC concluded that the LinkedIn advertisement is misleading by omission and exploits consumers’ lack of knowledge. The advertisement contravened Chapter I, Clauses 1.4 and 1.5 of the ASCI Code, and Clause 1, 1.1(a) and 1.3(a) of the ASCI Guidelines for Influencer Advertising in Digital Media. This complaint was UPHELD. Post the CCC meeting and ASCI verification, we observed that the objected post has been amended by incorporating the disclosure tools on which we have taken it on record as compliance.