Surrogate Advertisements: How Tobacco Companies Legally Advertise Tobacco Products

In India, more than a quarter of the population, and half the men, consume tobacco daily in some form. The credit can be given to the tobacco companies that have (in a ‘classical’ Pavlovian move) found a way to play the gutka addiction right into the only other national obsession that comes close to it: cricket. 

The phenomenon of surrogate advertising in India is as old as the government’s effort to ban it. Since the first such ban in 1995, companies have come up with inventive ways to circumvent the law, by marketing “extension products” sold under a common brand name. For example, ITC sells Classmate notebooks to children and Kingfisher sells soda water. These surrogate products, in turn, raise brand awareness for their tobacco and liquor products, which companies can legally sell, but cannot advertise. 

In 1999, a petition was filed in the Delhi High Court against a popular cigarette company’s sponsorship of the men’s national cricket team. The petition objected to the repeated telecasting of the cigarette logo to millions of viewers through the jerseys worn by the players. More than two decades and a mountain of legislation later, the advertising landscape around the most prominent sport in our country is still muddled with unethical surrogate ads promoting harmful tobacco products by proxy. 

At its peak, the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup featured advertisements of at least two de facto tobacco brands, Vimal Elaichi and Kamla Pasand, endorsed by sporting celebrities Virendra Sehwag and Sunil Gavaskar.

How do surrogate advertisements work?

Surrogate advertisements are not a novel tactic. Advertisers from all sectors utilize the psychology of classical conditioning, as was first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov’s famous experiments on dogs. Pavlov, in a series of experiments, paired the sound of a bell with the presentation of food to dogs to elicit salivation. Gradually, the dogs began to associate the bell with food and salivated when they heard the bell, even if they were not presented with food along with it. 

Viewers, in our world, are similarly exposed to a product along with a stimulus they naturally associate with positive feelings (their favorite sporting event, catchy music, or a tagline that resonates with them). Over time, the product becomes associated with the positive feelings evoked by the advertisement, and consumers experience the same positive reaction when they see it at a store, making them more likely to buy it. 

While one may argue that all advertising is an exercise in manipulation, surrogate advertisements are particularly insidious. Since they cannot directly highlight the product they intend to sell, surrogate ads focus on building brand recognition. These advertisements often feature flamboyant imagery and rope in prominent celebrities to widen their audience. (Think Bobby Deol emerging from a cloud of smoke in the movie ‘Animal’, as the soundtrack ‘Abrar's Entry’ plays in the background). 

They appeal to the emotional sensibilities of an audience that delights in identifying with larger-than-life figures and grandiose ideals. Ajay Devgn, Shah Rukh Khan, and Akshay Kumar, in this advert of Vimal Elaichi, pay tribute to brotherhood and fraternity (Zubaan ek ho toh dil bhi ek hone chahiye, Bolo Zubaan Kesari). Priyanka Chopra displays her “Acchai ki Chamak” in this slew of advertisements for Rajnigandha’s silver-coated elaichi. As tobacco brands cannot legally “own up” to themselves and stake their claim in their product markets, they attempt to own a cultural niche instead. 

These advertisements often succeed because our minds carry the capability to “generalize”. We may respond favorably to a stimulus (such as the actual tobacco product), because it very closely approximates the proxy product being advertised, such as silver-coated elaichi. In fact, many advertisements do not even mention the extension products they are advertising, instead focusing solely on amplifying the brand name. The word “elaichi” is only barely visible on the packet towards the end, which otherwise looks exactly like the tobacco product.

The success of surrogate advertising hinges crucially on a form of learning called higher-order conditioning. As opposed to classical conditioning, in higher-order conditioning, a stimulus (such as a captivating surrogate ad) can elicit a conditioned response (tobacco-seeking behaviour) without ever being directly paired with the unrelated stimulus (silver-coated-elaichi). This happens when a viewer is exposed to a positive stimulus like an entertaining ad. The ad which is associated with the extension product (elaichi) is exploited to introduce the person to tobacco consumption, thanks to them sharing not just the same brand name but also the way and style of consumption. 

The government’s effort to control surrogate advertisements

The crackdown by the government on surrogate advertising has only partly been effective. The laws that regulate surrogate advertising exist in a legal gray area. The Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) of 2003, prohibits direct advertisement of cigarettes and other tobacco products. It also prohibits advertisements that “indirectly suggest or promote the use or consumption” of tobacco products. This ideally should include surrogate advertisements, but an unclear definition impacts the implementation of the law. The act, however, allows advertisement at the point of sale of the tobacco product, such as outside vendor shops or restricted advertisements on packets of tobacco products. These issues would have been taken care of by the amendments proposed in the 2015 bill which was eventually withdrawn (for obvious reasons). 

The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), which is a self-regulatory body, has addressed the issue of surrogate advertising more robustly through a set of guidelines that govern when a brand extension product may be considered genuine. It stipulates that an extension product must meet a certain threshold of turnover, sales, and distribution for it to be advertised.

Recently, in December 2023, it tightened its regulations to ensure that the advertising expenditure of an extension product remains proportional to the sale of the product. The proportion of the budget allocated for advertising has now been capped at 200 percent of turnover in the first two years of product launch, followed by 100 percent of revenue in the third year, 50 percent in the fourth, and 30 percent thereafter. 

The barriers to tobacco control in India

Although the ASCI’s effort is a positive step in ensuring compliance with the law, there exist a multitude of challenges in its implementation. For one, the ASCI is a self-regulatory body that can only respond to public complaints brought to it. The new rules only seek to regulate surrogate advertising, and cannot abolish it altogether. This is because regulators toe a fine line between allowing new products a fair chance to gain traction through creative advertising and preventing misuse of advertising platforms by companies selling harmful products. Recognition of what constitutes a surrogate ad and ascertaining the extent to which it alludes to a product banned for advertising is itself subjective. 

The tobacco industry in India employs over 4.57 crore people and sales from tobacco contribute to more than 10% of the central excise earnings. Influential companies such as the Indian Tobacco Company (ITC), wield enormous lobbying power in the government. ITC controls more than 70% of the Indian cigarette market and recently surpassed British American Tobacco (BAT) to become the 3rd most valuable tobacco company globally. The Government of India has itself invested in the ITC and holds a 7.8% stake in the company. Expecting the government to stop tobacco production in the country is, therefore, unrealistic.

Even when the legislation is tough, tobacco sellers are constantly looking for loopholes in the law to increase their sales. A case in point is the unsuccessful ban on gutka sales across India. In 2012, the government banned the sale of gutka (pan masala containing tobacco or nicotine) under the Food Safety and Standards (Prohibition and Restrictions on Sales) Regulations, 2011. However, vendors began subverting the law by selling tobacco-free pan masala of the same brand and providing tobacco separately in a packet for free along with it. Users could now prepare their gutka by mixing the two. 

Efforts to ban the production and sale of tobacco have been met with resistance and ultimate failure. Vested interests of tobacco companies that profit off the industry, the government that generates revenue from tobacco taxation, and the dependence of underprivileged farmers on tobacco for their livelihood make the elimination of tobacco production incredibly difficult at its root. 

The way forward

A straightforward approach then, would be to encourage public awareness about the ills of tobacco consumption. Celebrities again could play a major role here, but in a good way: they have a moral and social responsibility to utilize their platform for the benefit of society. 

When Amitabh Bachchan was recently called out on social media for endorsing Kamala Pasand, a pan masala brand, he terminated his contract with the tobacco seller. He sent them a legal notice to stop airing ads featuring him. 

While Mr Bachchan's acknowledgment of his social responsibility is commendable, the damage already caused by his ads is tragically irredeemable. Meanwhile, other influential celebrities continue to endorse brands marketing harmful surrogate products. It is high time we addressed this remorseless greed and the apathy of lawmakers leading to the tobacco epidemic in India.

Edited by Parth Sharma.

Image by Janvi Bokoliya.