Deceptive advertisements cheat

consumers
Govt inaction blamed
Emran Hossain | Published: 00:03, Mar 24,2018 | Updated: 00:27, Mar 24,2018
      

No monitoring by government made consumers victims of deceptive advertisements by sellers.

In deceptive advertisements sellers manipulate product information to increase their sales.
Both private and government firms exploit the situation to their full advantage.
The obvious upshot being false and misleading advertisements are dished out through media outlets, both print
as well as electronic.
In this regard a wide spectrum of social media are also used for dishing out misleading advertisements often
conveying double meanings about products to the gullible consumers.
Consumers Association of Bangladesh president Ghulam Rahman called it ‘a shame’ for the authorities to
allow the consumers being cheated by advertisements based on lies.
Strict laws of civilized countries protect consumers from greedy merchants and their deceptive advertisements.
But Bangladesh is possibly among few countries that have no effective law to protect the vulnerable
consumers from the deceptive traps laid by sellers using the handy tool of advertisement.

Doctors and communication experts said unregulated advertisements seriously impair consumers’ interests in
Bangladesh, with its poor record of product standardisation and an equally poor record of enforcement of the
law.
Even products certified by the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution often convey misleading picture
relating to the quality of items sold in the market.
The label on the Teer brand of Soybean oil certified by the BSTI claims that this particular cooking oil boosts
immunity, strengthens teeth and bones, resists osteoporosis, depression and night blindness.
The label also states that this cooking oil brand also prolongs youth of consumers, strengthens their hair and
improves the health of their skin.
The BSTI certification mark on the label makes the claims credible to consumers though the BSTI does not
take the responsibility of its label.
BSTI certification wing director SM Ishaque Ali said quality claims printed on the label were manufacturers’
responsibility.
In newspaper advertisements, City Group which sells the Teer brand of soyabean oil publicizes that their
cooking oil also helps control blood cholesterol and insulin.
In 2017, Bangladesh Food Safety Authority’s safe food inspector Mohammad
Kamrul Hasan filed a case against the City Group for using the misleading label on the soyabean oil brand
marketed by it under the Safe Food Act 2013.
He said that he was shocked to see the label claiming the healing powers of the cooking oil sold by this
company.

Cooking oil cannot be a medicine with this attributes, he told New Age.
The City Group is facing trial in the case.
Since 2013, only five cases were filed by Dhaka South City Corporation’s seven Safe Food Inspectors against
the use of misleading labels on consumer products.
In February, the BFSA in a notice accused Pran, a major food processing company, of misleading consumers
in its advertisements.
Bangladesh Diabetic Association laboratory development director Subhagata Choudhury described these
actions as ‘totally inadequate’ on the part of the enforcement authorities,
He said that often additives and preservatives were used in packaged foods in Bangladesh beyond permissible
levels.
Though excessive use of additives and preservatives make food harmful for the consumers, he said, the firms
selling them boast about the health benefits of items in their advertisements.
He blamed foods laced with excessive preservatives and additives for the rapid rise in hypertension, diabetes,
cancer, kidney and cardiac complications and other non- communicable diseases.
Children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable targets of misleading advertisements, said Dhaka
University mass communication and journalism professor Gitiara Nasreen.
Being more sensitive, she said, children and adolescents are more likely to trust the information in
advertisements.
Online media platforms are abundant with examples of false advertisement influencing consumers.
Until March 24, the verified Facebook page of Horlicks Bangladesh was liked 379,769 times and had 379,782
followers.
Mothers continuously interact with updates posted on the page, sharing their desire to feed Horlicks to their
kids, often aged about three.
The responses of mothers came in comments to posts containing advertisements that claimed that children
drinking Horlicks grow ‘taller,’ ‘stronger,’ and ‘sharper’ than those who do not drink it. The advertisement is
also extensively shown on TV channels.
Another benefit children get from drinking Horlicks, another advert said, is the ability to concentrate better
than those who don’t.
The advert goes as far as saying that it has been proved scientifically.
‘This is absolutely rubbish,’ said Bangladesh Breastfeeding Foundation chairman SK Roy.
‘There is no scientific proof to back this claim. This is false,’ said Roy.
In 2017, the BBF served a legal notice on GlaxoSmithKline, which produces Horlicks, for confusing
consumers with such misleading adverts.
In 2008, the Advertising Standards Authority in UK banned a similar Horlicks advert mistakenly broadcast on
Ntv Europe, airing programme for Bangladeshi community there.
The ASA had banned a Nestle advert for that claimed Maggie noodles strengthens muscles and bones.
‘The health and nutritional claims made by GSK and Nestle may be allowed in other parts of the world, but
they breach the strict rules in the UK and we have seen no evidence to substantiate them,’ said ASA after
slapping the ban.
Manufacturers of both the products had said in reply that the adverts were never meant to be shown in the UK.
In this regard, Government-owned companies are no exception. In ads, Bangladesh Milk Producer’s Co-
operative Union calls its products as ‘pure’ though the Safe Food Act prohibits the use of the term ‘pure’ for
selling food items in which additives had been used.
This company’s best known product is ‘Milk Vita’.
A 2016 study, conducted by Work for a better Bangladesh trust, revealed that about 20 per cent of the
advertisements studied promoted unhealthy foods.
Swadhinata Chikitsak Parishad president Iqbal Arsnal said that only greedy advertisers could promise cancer
treatment with guarantee or health improvement in a few weeks or heart block removal without any surgical
interventions.
Immediate past information secretary Nasir Uddin Ahmed admitted only a broadcast policy was not enough to
deal with the situation.
Advertising Agencies Association of Bangladesh president Ramendu Majumdar said that the country needs a
code of ethics for the ad firms as ads influence people.