The world health organization celebrates the world No tobacco day on 30th May. The main intention of the celebration is to make public aware about hazards of tobacco products and de-addicting the. However, Tobacco companies iN India using alternative ways to reach the consumer through surrogate advertisements.
According to Wikipedia
"Surrogate advertising. Surrogate advertising is a form of advertising which is used to promote banned products, like cigarettes and alcohol, in the disguise of another product"
Some of the Indian brands using surrogate advertisements are
1. Wills: Wills is known for their cigarette in India. However, they have diversified their business into textile category, their main motto is to promote the tobacco brand wills.
2. RMD
This is the brand from Dhariwala industries. They are well known for Manikchand brand. This brand has rules indian gutka market over the years. Though Manickchand itself converted into RMD , in this advertisement it was shown as the Panmasala. However, the intention is to promote the RMD gutka.
3. Vimal Belongs to lalwani group of companies. It led into controversies for using Ajay devgan in advertisement and not differentiating the pan masala and Gutka. Though company tell about pan masala in the public their main motto is to sell the Gutka.
4.