If news reports are to be believed, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has received complaints against HUL from two consumers against the controversial Rin advertisement. The general secretary of ASCI, Allan Collaco has said that a notice to HUL will be issued on Wednesday and HUL will be given a 15-day period to respond. Apparently, there are a few complaints pending against HUL in connection with other ads too. Last month, P&G reportedly lodged a complaint against HUL…

In the last two posts, I had discussed the facts of the Rin-Tide controversy and the position of the law on comparative advertising. It appears that mainstream media has finally woken up to the matter. A column in the Economic Times today reports on the controversy and adds that a source from HUL has said that Procter and Gamble, the owner of Tide has gone to Court on the advertisement. The source further informed ET that employees at HUL have…

SpicyIP Wishes all its Readers a Safe n Happy Holi! May Rin and Tide become friends this Holi! (Wouldn’t it be anti-competitive then?) (The conclusions originally arrived at in this post have been slightly altered after a bit of deliberation) In my last post, I had discussed in brief the recent advertisement for Hindustan Unilever’s detergent brand “Rin”, in which a rival brand “Tide” figures prominently. Quite a few comments to that post referred to the Horlicks v. Complan judgment…

  “Bold and brash” is in and it’s the new chic(k?). Gone are the days of harmless understated advertisements (Oh I am not complaining at all, maybe I will after a few decades, but not now). If Deepika Chikhalia was the epitome of the “Bharateeya Naari” (thanks to Ramanand Sagar’s “Ramayan”) for “Nirma Super” for what seems like ages ages ago, the new set of female characters in advertisements for detergent powders appear to be scheming conniving “saas-bahu” types straight…