ASCI appoints NS Rajan as chairman

Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) on Thursday announced that NS Rajan, director, August One Partners LLP, has been unanimously elected as chairman of the board of governors of the industry’s self-regulator. The decision was made at the board meeting following the 36th annual general meeting of ASCI. He replaces Subhash Kamath who has served the industry watchdog for two-years in the role.

At the meeting, Saugata Gupta, managing director & CEO, Marico Limited, was elected vice-chairman, while Shashidhar Sinha, chief executive officer at IPG Mediabrands India, was appointed honorary treasurer.

Subhash Kamath, the outgoing chairman, will now be a part of the Consultative Committee of the board, which, among other activities, mentors the new initiatives of the organisation. Virat Tandon, group CEO of Lintas India, and Arun Srinivas, director, GMS India (Meta), were newly inducted onto the board at the same meeting.

Talking about his new role Rajan says, “I am looking forward to advancing the agenda of the Council to rapidly increase ASCI awareness among consumers so that they engage more readily and in greater numbers, voicing their concerns, anxieties, and questions about what they experience in the form of thousands of ads per day. That number, on average, in India is anywhere between 7000-10000 ads per day,”

He further adds that his key focus will be taking forward ASCI’s efforts more towards prevention, in addition to the robust corrective mechanisms that have been built over the decades.

“The third pillar would be to keep ahead of the fast-expanding and fractionalising digital domain to ensure that responsible advertising principles are followed equally across all media and consumer engagements by advertising in every form,” Rajan notes.

Rajan is a public relations (PR) veteran. He was earlier the founder and managing director of Ketchum Sampark, an Omnicom Group Company.

A key initiative announced at the AGM by the outgoing Chairman, Subhash Kamath was the soon-to-be-launched ASCI Academy. The academy ASCI says will work in the direction of training and awareness creation, and deep engagement with various stakeholders in the prevention of objectionable ads.

Speaking about his two-term tenure as ASCI chairman, Kamath says, “Our vision of making ASCI more future-ready by taking on the challenges of a digital world and a fast-changing communication landscape, and by adding value to the industry through more agility, responsiveness, services, and thought leadership, has started showing results. I’m sure ASCI will continue to grow from strength to strength in the coming years.”