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FIITJEE, a coaching institute specialising in JEE training and other competitive exams, has received intense backlash over its recent ad where the company has used pictures of a former student to make a point. The ad has come into the crosshairs of the internet for its insensitivity towards a student who left the institute to join a rival, going as far to share her private details and marks.
The instutitue intended to highlight how the student's performance deteriorated after she joined the rival institute.
FIITJEE also attacked the rival; however, unlike in the case of the student, the institute refrained from taking names, only using terms like "evil" to refer to it. It also called out the rival for its poor record and instances of suicides among its students.
Commissioner of Income Tax, Katyayani Sanjay Bhatia, who is quite vocal about gender issues, also lashed out at the institute over the ad.
Tagging ASCI, the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Women and Child Development, and Minister Smriti Irani, Bhatia demanded that action be taken against FIITJEE.
A new low in advertisements @fiitjee . You are posting the picture of a child saying that she performed badly because she left your institute! I have blurred the picture because I don't believe in this disgusting way of claiming your superiority by belittling a girl child. pic.twitter.com/W18Rd9rh1s
— Katyayani Sanjay Bhatia (@katyayani13) March 17, 2024
Even from the perspective of ads, experts weighed in on the issue of ethics in advertisements. Brand consultant Karthik Srinivasan also wrote a detailed post slamming the ad, calling it the "worst ad" in recent times.
"This is perhaps the WORST ad I have seen in recent times. Not in terms of aesthetics (this is a standard design template by now) but in terms of the content.
"It's one thing to mount a few students—with their name and photograph—as super-achievers for cracking an entrance exam to build pressure on every other student (and parent) but it is entirely another level of evil (to quote the word used in the ad to denote a rival brand) by FIITJEE to name and shame a student—with name and photo prominently displayed in a front-page ad!—for merely dropping off their class and joining some other institute! This is absolutely horrendous.
"Was it done with the permission of the student (and their parents)? Even if they sought permission (seems unlikely given the uncharitable way they have framed the student's journey), this is still completely unwarranted and, in fact, extremely shameful.
"There's already some movement towards trying to not frame these competitive entrance exams as the end of the world, but this ad takes everything back to square one by being so miserably shameful.
"As if this was not enough, there's also a nudge-wink note on some Kota-based institute and its history of suicides! Kota and suicides are a much, much larger problem. To use that to punch a competing brand is plain evil and even more shameful.
"I hope The Advertising Standards Council of India and the Government come down heavily on FIITJEE in terms of real punishment that would make any other entrance exam brand think 100 times before using such cheap tactics," he wrote