Former PepsiCo India head D Shivakumar elected as ASCI Chairman

NEW DELHI: Advertising watchdog ASCI Wednesday said D Shivakumar, former PepsiCo India head, has been appointed as its chairman. Shivakumar, who is presently Group Executive President, Corporate Strategy at Aditya Birla Group, was unanimously elected as the Chairman of the Board of ASCI for a period of three years.

While, Sony Pictures Networks India President - Network Sales & International Business Rohit Gupta was elected as the Vice-Chairman and Media Brands CEO Shashidhar Sinha was re-appointed as honorary treasurer of the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI).

Commenting on the development Shivakumar said:" We live in changing times with respect to information, media and trust of society. ASCI has been built on the foundation of self-regulation."


Members of the board includes TGBL Director Harish Bhat, BBH Communications India Managing Partner Subhash Kamath, HUL Executive Director & Vice President Sandeep Kohli, SK Palekar from IMT, P&G Hygiene and Health Care CEO Madhusudan Gopalan and Google India Director Sales Vikas Agnihotri.

The Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) established by ASCI is an independent body as majority of its members drawn from civil society members like consumer activists, lawyers, doctors, educationists.

It had met 47 times during the year and deliberated on complaints against 2641 advertisements. Complaints against 1177 advertisements were upheld, while for 483 they were not upheld.

The significant increase in the number of complaints as compared to 2016-17 numbers (2300) is largely due to ASCI's Suo Moto Monitoring project viz. National Advertisement Monitoring Services (NAMS).