Dileep Kumar
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NEW DELHI: In a bid to get more children hooked on to TV, Tata Sky, the country's largest DTH operator, is running an ad, which experts say is not backed by scientific evidence. The ad shows a 10-year-old girl saying that drinking green tea will protect her from mosquitoes and that she has picked up this fact from TV.
Created by ad agency Ogilvy& Mather (O&M), it is a part of Tata Sky's latest campaign 'Ab bachchey seekhein TV se' (Kids learn with television), targeted at parents with children between ages 6 and 12 years.
"The one about the green tea is like saying that camel's milk is good for people with diabetes. There is no scientific evidence at present to prove that drinking green tea helps people repel mosquitoes.
The ad will only help in misleading consumers," says Dr K K Aggarwal, senior national vice-president with the Indian Medical Association.
Similarly, Dr Romel Tickoo, senior consultant internal medicine at Max Hospital in Saket, Delhi, says that the medical fraternity has not come across any such finding to suggest that consumption of green tea is linked to less mosquito bites.
"Right now, it's just a wild conjecture like the thousands that you come across online everyday. If it had been proved scientifically, we would have been the first to know," he says.
Asked to comment on its claim, a Tata Sky spokesperson pointed to two websites ehow.com and omgfacts.com. Both websites claim that after drinking unsweetened green tea, "certain chemicals in green tea are excreted through the pores and act as a natural mosquito repellent".
But, the two websites are silent on the source of the statement. "You just can't Google something and put it up as a fact without scientific evidence," said a senior Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) official.
"It's strange," said Partha Rakshit, chairman, ASCI, when asked about the claim made in the Tata Sky ad. But, he refused to comment further, saying that ASCI has not received any consumer complaint about the ad.
Numerous health benefits of green tea are being listed online nowadays. Reputed sources like Harvard Health Publications attribute lower LDL cholesterol levels and reduced risk of death from heart disease and stroke to green tea. Some websites also suggest holding a sachet of wet green tea to mosquito bites to ease irritation.
Tata Sky green tea ad misleading: Experts - TOI Mobile | The Times of India Mobile Site
Created by ad agency Ogilvy& Mather (O&M), it is a part of Tata Sky's latest campaign 'Ab bachchey seekhein TV se' (Kids learn with television), targeted at parents with children between ages 6 and 12 years.
"The one about the green tea is like saying that camel's milk is good for people with diabetes. There is no scientific evidence at present to prove that drinking green tea helps people repel mosquitoes.
The ad will only help in misleading consumers," says Dr K K Aggarwal, senior national vice-president with the Indian Medical Association.
Similarly, Dr Romel Tickoo, senior consultant internal medicine at Max Hospital in Saket, Delhi, says that the medical fraternity has not come across any such finding to suggest that consumption of green tea is linked to less mosquito bites.
"Right now, it's just a wild conjecture like the thousands that you come across online everyday. If it had been proved scientifically, we would have been the first to know," he says.
Asked to comment on its claim, a Tata Sky spokesperson pointed to two websites ehow.com and omgfacts.com. Both websites claim that after drinking unsweetened green tea, "certain chemicals in green tea are excreted through the pores and act as a natural mosquito repellent".
But, the two websites are silent on the source of the statement. "You just can't Google something and put it up as a fact without scientific evidence," said a senior Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) official.
"It's strange," said Partha Rakshit, chairman, ASCI, when asked about the claim made in the Tata Sky ad. But, he refused to comment further, saying that ASCI has not received any consumer complaint about the ad.
Numerous health benefits of green tea are being listed online nowadays. Reputed sources like Harvard Health Publications attribute lower LDL cholesterol levels and reduced risk of death from heart disease and stroke to green tea. Some websites also suggest holding a sachet of wet green tea to mosquito bites to ease irritation.
Tata Sky green tea ad misleading: Experts - TOI Mobile | The Times of India Mobile Site
