Despite reservations and concerns, over 10,000 ‘self-declaration certificates’ (SDCs) have already been uploaded on the portals of the Press Council of India (PCI) and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) since the Supreme Court directive came into effect on Jun 18th.
While this does demonstrate a remarkably high degree of brand conformity, advertisers and advertising agencies told Storyboard18 that the volume of advertisements has been impacted significantly. Mainly because many are still finding it challenging to navigate through the whole process of uploading SDC for multiple ads and the portal lags. Advertisers and agencies are also cautious, partly because of clients confidentiality as well.
“The current form of the SDC advisory, which doesn’t address specific use cases, leaves us and our brands with many questions,” said Chetan Asher, Founder & CEO, Tonic Worldwide. “While we are complying with official communique and have advised our partner brands to do the same, some clients have chosen to pause their activities and adopt a wait-and-watch approach for the initial days.
This uncertainty is likely to impact the volume of advertising activity, particularly digital, until complete clarity and consensus are achieved.
“Any reputable brand or its representative agency would prefer to err on the side of caution at this time,” he said.
“We are finding this a tedious and time-consuming process. Big companies and MNC’s with multiple brands and brand managers have to upload SDCs as per different brands, which has led to a pause in ongoing campaigns,” said another agency head on the condition of anonymity.
One CMO of a major advertiser said, “It’s a complete mess.”
Another advertiser who was approached for this story said that “they are busy in compliance and uploading SDC and don’t have enough time left for anything else,” stating that it is more time-consuming and labor-intensive than they first imagined.
SoCheers at the moment is figuring out workflows with its clients – who’s picking up what bit of the process. “We need to make sure we are complying fully as it’s our collective duty,” said Siddharth Devnani, Co-founder and Director, SoCheers.
Given how all sorts of brands invest in digital today, digital usually has far too many creatives to manage this manually – in fact creative assets are made on the fly all the time.
Digital campaigns will require automation and API level integration to be able to be complaint in the long run.
“An excessive number of creatives is proving to be a hindrance to the overall process,” he said.
Digital platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X run lakhs of ads per day. In the last year alone, nearly 34 crore ads were released in internet/digital media by 1,30,000 advertisers. In print 30 lakh ads were released by 1,51,000 advertisers and in TV 8.6 crore ads were released by 8,000 advertisers in a year.
Given the scale of advertising in the country, advertisers shared that the timeline for implementation is very tight, giving very little time to test the portal and the process.
“The majority of brands are cautious and are taking a wait-and-watch approach towards this new system. Furthermore, some are also waiting for the first movers to pick up the baton and work towards it. There’s a hold on activities for some of them who are at the cautious end of the spectrum,” Devnani highlighted.
While the impact of SDC is still unfolding, and its affect is yet to be gauged on the advertising industry overall, Vishal Agrahari, AVP Media, BC Web Wise, agreed that there are potential delays being seen in launching new campaigns.
“Some advertisers are even considering holding off on new ads until things are clearer. There is uncertainty and confusion about how the system will work in practice, and some advertisers are unsure about the specific requirements,” he said.
The SC had issued a directive in its order on SDC on May 7, 2024, following which, the MIB introduced a new feature on the Broadcast Seva Portal for TV and radio ads and the PCI’s portal for print and digital/internet Advertisements. Both portals so far have seen around 10,000 of SDCs uploaded, a few of which are testers and dummies. The certificate, signed by an authorised representative of the advertiser/advertising agency, needs to be submitted through these portals.
However, ambiguities in the order have left stakeholders confused and grappling for answers over the last few weeks. Furthermore, the self-declaration mechanism in its current form has raised serious concerns about its feasibility in an increasingly creative and complex, and velocity and volume-driven adscape, where everything from print ads to programmatic advertising co-exist.
Advertisers have called it “unviable” and the industry fears the mechanism will also thwart innovation and stifle creativity, and in its place create ‘extreme bureaucracy’.
All new ads must have SDCs, otherwise they cannot be released. Meanwhile, government tenders, public notices, obituary ads, and classified ads are excluded from the purview.
Several advertisers that Storyboard18 spoke to last week mentioned that they rescheduled campaign releases, advancing the release of new campaigns and ads before June 18th, the day of implementation. Stakeholders and industry bodies have also filed interventions in the court.
Over the last two weeks, industry bodies including the Indian Society of Advertisers, the Indian Broadcasting & Digital Foundation, among others have written to MIB to extend the compliance period by 45 days and even met the Ministry, but no resolution was achieved.
On July 9 the MIB will be submitting an affidavit on the actions taken so far on SDC in the top court. It will also have the opportunity to present reactions of stakeholders to the mandatory SDC directive and mechanism, and their representations.