Husband ‘changed’ in advertisement, Telangana govt initiates action on Ad agency

The Telangana government announced twoschemes on August 15, for which they published twoadvertisements with the faces of a husband, wife and child printed across all regional and English newspapers.

A woman was featured in two print advertisements of Telangana government with one of them carrying a picture of another man as her husband, prompting an ‘embarrassed’ administration to issue notices to the ad agencies concerned seeking an explanation.

The advertisementin Telugu papers carried pictures of the woman and her husband, while the publicity material released for English papers had the photo of a different man as her spouse.

As the goof-up came in for criticism in the social media, the Information and Public Relations Department issued notices to the two agencies which undertook the ad campaign, seeking explanation, a senior official of the department said on Monday.

Aravind Kumar, the Principal Secretary of Telangana Government clarified the issue. “An issue is being created for using a woman’s pic in two of the ads appeared recently. Clarifying that @IPRTelangana Dept has issued a formal notice to both advertising agencies & appropriate action will be initiated if any of them have used the pic unauthorisedly (sic), he tweeted.

However, the woman was shocked to see her picture in the advertisement with another man as her husband, the woman said, adding she also had to face criticism from family members.

(With inputs from agencies)