New Delhi: Taking note of the Maggi noodles row, traders body CAIT has urged Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan to formulate policy and guidelines for brand ambassadors endorsing products.
"...The current Maggi row has given an opportunity to frame specific policy and guidelines for brand ambassadors to be followed while doing any endorsement for any product," the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said in a statement.
The traders body said it is a well known fact that endorsements are made primarily with an aim to push sales of a product and the person doing such endorsement generally enters into a contract against specific consideration and by virtue of which the Brand Ambassador becomes integral part of the sales campaign of such product.
Since endorsement in an advertisement makes large impact on the choice of the consumers, the brand ambassadors are not doing any charity but providing commercial services and as such they can not escape from the liability of good claims, they make in an endorsement, it said.
CAIT president B C Bhartia and secretary general Praveen Khandelwal said an endorsement means any advertising message including verbal statements, demonstrations or depictions of the name, signature, likeness or other identifying personal characteristics of an individual that consumers are likely to believe reflects the opinions, beliefs, findings, or experiences of the individual.
"Since it has vital bearing on consumers, there is a need of reasonable prudence and responsible conduct of the brand ambassador to avoid misleading and deceptive endorsements. Therefore, framing of policy and guidelines for brand ambassadors is the need of the hour," CAIT said.
Regarding the Maggi row, CAIT expressed satisfaction over the timely action of the government but regretted that so far no action has been taken either to fix the liability on brand ambassadors or issuing a clarification that in no way the brand ambassadors are responsible for the good claims they make during endorsement of an advertisement.
"We are deeply concerned with this issue since crores of traders across the country are engaged in selling and distributing of the products endorsed by brand ambassadors and any action of the government on any such product has larger ramifications on the business of traders, which do involve large scale of working capital," CAIT said.
CAIT has urged Paswan that Government should either take action against the brand ambassadors of Maggi or clarify that they are not responsible for the endorsements they have done so as to end the state of confusion.
"However, before taking any decision, an opportunity of hearing must be given to us to place our view point based on the feed back we have received from traders across the country," CAIT added.
Earlier this month, the government had warned of action against the brand ambassadors if advertisements for the noodles were found to be misleading.
