TATA SALT LITE – A well made ad but does it mislead the consumer?

This ad is being shown on television for quite some time; perhaps I should have written about it earlier in this blog. Salt is believed to be dangerous for a person suffering from blood pressure (BP), using light humour the ad effective demonstrates the suffering a BP patient has to goes through, which is eating food with no or very little salt to control his BP, his helplessness is convincingly shown. The interaction between the father (BP patient) and his daughter is very interesting and engaging; the father begging his daughter for a piece to eat and the daughter not permitting him is both humourous and at the same time you feel sorry for the man because he seems to be destined to eat bland food.

I like the script and acting. The message conveyed to the audience is very clear – With Tata Salt Lite in the house he (the BP patient) need not deprive himself of tasty food, all he needs to do is to just replace regular salt with Tata Salt Lite and enjoy the taste like others. He does not have to compromise by eating bland food. The interaction between the father and daughter is shown beautifully, I quite like the way the little girl reacts to her father’s pleading, there is no doubt that this ad has been directed very well. Although I like the ad, because to me it is a well made advertising film which gets the

message across convincingly, I am not convinced about the proposition itself – Tata Salt Lite helps in managing BP because it contains 15 per cent less sodium, so if you use it you do not need to compromise with taste. It must be borne in mind that the ad says that Tata Salt Lite ‘helps in managing BP’, which is vague statement. The ad does not say that it helps in reducing BP or keeps it under check. According to me with clever use of words the ad in effect misleads the consumer, in this case a BP patient, into believing that if he were

to use Tata Salt Lite he can eat whatever he wishes and need not worry about his BP going up. 
 

Personally I doubt if this product can really help a BP patient, the manufacturer claims that the product has 15 percent less sodium which actually means a Tata Salt Lite pack is 85 per cent salt and 15 percent filler material, that is because you cannot reduce the sodium content in the salt molecule (Nacl

or sodium chloride). A BP patient needs to drastically reduce his/her salt intake to keep his/her BP under control, so even if the patient were to use Tata Salt Lite his/her food I doubt if he/she can use the same quantity of salt he/she would have otherwise used if he/she was healthy. To my mind the ad is a well made but a misleading ad, it does not present all the relevant facts; I wonder how doctors would react to it.