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Smokeless tobacco (SLT) consumption is associated with multiple adverse health effects and mortality, with the highest burden in India. The WHO FCTC has banned tobacco advertisement, promotion and sponsorship via Article 13. Indian laws also prohibit any kind of direct or indirect advertisements in all forms of audio, visual, and print media; brand promotion; and sponsorship of tobacco products. However, the tobacco industry continues to find aggressive marketing ways to advertise their products. This study aims to assess the extent of surrogate advertisement of smokeless tobacco products through frequency modulation (FM) radio stations in the city of Delhi (National Capital Territory of India). In this study, the advertisements broadcasted over FM radio across different channels (private and government owned) in total 162 h were analyzed. The time duration was spread evenly over morning peak hours, off hours, and evening peak hours. It was found that multiple brands including Vimal, Kamla Pasand, and Rajshree have used surrogate advertising to market their brands that are commonly associated with smokeless tobacco products. However, no such advertisement was found to be aired on government-owned FM channels. The total surrogate advertisements broadcasted were over 286 times, where no significant difference was found in distribution among peak and non-peak hours. The study indicated that the tobacco industry is making its way to sell the products through indirect advertisements. The need of the hour is to not only enforce tobacco advertising ban laws in all forms of advertising media but also to strictly regulate smokeless tobacco products.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of celebrity endorsement on surrogate advertisement among youth in Kerala. Advertisements are considered to be a very effective medium to reach the mass audience. It is the best way of communicating the product or services of a company to a large group of target audience. Celebrity endorsement is a marketing technique in which celebrity allow an entity such as brand, a product and others to use their name in promoting or supporting the entity (Bergkvist & Zhou, 2016). This celebrity endorsement is proven to effect purchase intention (Gupta, Kishore & Verma, 2015; McCormick, 2016; Pornpitakpan, 2004; Wang et.al. 2013). Surrogate advertising is a kind of advertisement of a brand extension in such a way that brings clear recall of the core product in the minds of the consumer. The aim of surrogate advertising is effective communication between manufactures and consumers with the object to sell a product, service or idea which they could not do otherwise (Deepa Nathwani, 2016). Based on the analysis of the primary data, it was revealed that celebrity endorsement has a positive impact on surrogate advertisement among youth. Among the demographic variables, age and educational qualification played a pivotal role in the recall of original products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smokeless tobacco (SLT) consumption is associated with multiple adverse health effects and mortality, with the highest burden in India. The WHO FCTC has banned tobacco advertisement, promotion and sponsorship via Article 13. Indian laws also prohibit any kind of direct or indirect advertisements in all forms of audio, visual, and print media; brand promotion; and sponsorship of tobacco products. However, the tobacco industry continues to find aggressive marketing ways to advertise their products. This study aims to assess the extent of surrogate advertisement of smokeless tobacco products through frequency modulation (FM) radio stations in the city of Delhi (National Capital Territory of India). In this study, the advertisements broadcasted over FM radio across different channels (private and government owned) in total 162 h were analyzed. The time duration was spread evenly over morning peak hours, off hours, and evening peak hours. It was found that multiple brands including Vimal, Kamla Pasand, and Rajshree have used surrogate advertising to market their brands that are commonly associated with smokeless tobacco products. However, no such advertisement was found to be aired on government-owned FM channels. The total surrogate advertisements broadcasted were over 286 times, where no significant difference was found in distribution among peak and non-peak hours. The study indicated that the tobacco industry is making its way to sell the products through indirect advertisements. The need of the hour is to not only enforce tobacco advertising ban laws in all forms of advertising media but also to strictly regulate smokeless tobacco products., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Singh, Jain, Tyagi, Yadav and Singh.)

Background: Pan masala is a comparatively recent habit in India and is marketed with and without tobacco. Advertisements of tobacco products have been banned in India since 1st May 2004. The advertisements of plain pan masala, which continue in Indian media, have been suspected to be surrogate for tobacco products bearing the same name. The study was carried out to assess whether these advertisements were for the intended product, or for tobacco products with same brand name.Materials and Methods: The programme of a popular television Hindi news channel was watched for a 24-h period. Programmes on the same channel and its English counterpart were watched on different days to assess whether the advertisements were repeated. The total duration of telecast of a popular brand of plain pan masala (Pan Parag) was multiplied by the rate charged by the channel to provide the cost of advertisement of this product. The total sale value of the company was multiplied by the proportion of usage of plain pan masala out of gutka plus pan masala habit as observed from a different study, to provide the annual sale value of plain pan masala product under reference.Results: The annual sale value of plain Pan Parag was estimated to be Rs. 67.1 million. The annual cost of the advertisement of the same product on two television channels was estimated at Rs. 244.6 million.Conclusion: The advertisements of plain pan masala seen on Indian television are a surrogate for the tobacco products bearing the same name. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]