NEW DELHI August 27 : A recent ruling by the Advertising Standards
Council of India (ASCI) has upheld the complaint of Brother International
against the 'Sharp' range of fax machines for claiming to be 'the No.1 fax
machine in USA."
The concerned advertisements were released by Electronic Office
Equipment Section of Larsen & Toubro Ltd., the distributor for Sharp
faxes in leading publications. The ad had quoted 1997 sales figure in USA.
This claim of Sharp was challenged by Brother International since as per
the Dataquest USA issue dated February 99, Brother faxes had a market
share of 26.6 per cent against that of Sharp faxes which had a share of
19.7 per cent.
The Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) of ASCI which met on July 1,
1999, upheld Brother International's complaint against Sharp since it
contravened Chapter 1.4 of the code by misleading the general public by
citing earlier market data of 1997 as against the changed current market
situation of 1999. The ASCI has directed Sharp to withdraw/ modify the
offending ad which was misleading the public.
Brother International is a Japanese company headquartered in Nagoya
Japan, with a global consolidated turnover of 3.5 billion US $. Brother is
the undisputed global leader in Office Automation products, which include
fax machines, typewriters, wordprocessors, electronic labeling machines
and Fashion products. In India Brother has a liaison office in Mumbai.
Brother products are currently being marketed in India through a set of
leading distributors that include Godrej Pacific Technology Ltd.