The Advertising Standards Council of India has upheld a complaint against Kerala Fashion Jewellery over daughters being a source of “tension” as “derogatory” towards girls and women.
In a press release issued on Thursday, the Consumer Complaints’ Council of the ASCI said: “The reference in the advertisement, to daughters of marriageable age being “tension” derides gender and is derogatory for a girl child. The advertisement also has an implied reference to the practice of “Dowry”, which is in violation of The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961.”
The advertisement campaign in question had actor and director Prakash Raj calling daughters of marriageable age as a source of “tension” for parents.
In August 2015, KFJ had asked people to message “Tension” to a number saying that senders that they would receive a reply on a particular date.
Around the same time, it had released an ad in Tamil, Malalayam and Telugu languages, saying that a girl of marriageable age was a source of tension. Later, in a bid to do damage control it added a tagline “Definitely not. Getting your daughter’s wedding jewellery of her choice, of the lowest market rate is the tension,” below the sentence that said daughters were a source of tension.
The ASCI press release said that the KFJ ad was one of 90 complaints which it had upheld. A total of 156 complaints had been filed in March, the assessments of which were completed in May.