New Delhi, Oct. 19: The Pan Bahar campaign featuring Hollywood actor Pierce Brosnan has invited the wrath of India's advertising watchdog.

The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has asked the manufacturer to clarify why a "celebrity" was used in an advertisement for a pan masala, a potentially unhealthy product.

Launched on October 7, the mega print and audiovisual campaign by Ashok and Company, a subsidiary of the DJ Group, had created a huge buzz for featuring Brosnan, best known for playing James Bond in four films between 1995 and 2002.

In January this year, the ad watchdog had revised its guidelines and barred the advertising of pan masala products by celebrities.

"While products like pan masala and supari are not banned for sale, the ad features a well-known actor from Hollywood and is being talked about a lot - it clearly defies our guidelines," said a senior ASCI executive.

"Before we recommend any action against the ad, we have issued a notice to the company."

In its guidelines, the ASCI has said that advertisements should not feature personalities from the fields of sports, music and cinema for products which, by law, either require a health warning in their advertisements or cannot be purchased by minors.

"There should be a statutory health warning on the product and the advertisement, mentioning that it cannot be purchased by minors," the guidelines say.

ASCI general secretary Shweta Purandare said the agency would not comment "officially" as the matter was under "consideration".

She said the guidelines were changed after the ASCI took note of a Delhi government appeal to Bollywood stars not to endorse pan masala brands as they contained potential cancer-causing agents.

Vikash Shukla, the brand manager of Pan Bahar, said: "We cannot comment on the matter now. The reply is being sent to the ASCI."

The ASCI move comes days after Mumbai cancer surgeon Pankaj Chaturvedi slammed Brosnan in an open letter for agreeing to promote a product that has a potential carcinogen, areca nut, in it. The actor has become "an instrument of corporate greed", the oncologist alleged.

Company sources said the idea behind getting Brosnan to promote Pan Bahar, often seen as a street product, was to ensure that it gets a brand makeover. But the campaign and the actor have received mostly negative feedback on social networking sites.

Advertising industry experts point out that many Bollywood stars have endorsed pan masala products that are often surrogates of the real thing. Many ads show them promoting "mouth freshener" variants of the product.

Shah Rukh Khan has featured in a Pan Vilas ad, Ajay Devgn has long been associated with Vimal pan masala. Priyanka Chopra has endorsed Rajnigandha, the largest selling pan masala brand in India. Saif Ali Khan used to promote Pan Bahar, one of the oldest names in the pan masala sector.

In the new TV ad, Brosnan is featured holding up a can of Pan Bahar mouth freshener, but towards the end it also shows Pan Bahar Crystal, which has supari as an ingredient.

In the print ad, the can held by the actor reads "Pan Bahar - The Heritage Pan Masala".

Harendra Bijoor, a Mumbai-based brand consultant, said the brouhaha around the latest ad campaign was probably because a seemingly small, desi brand had managed to get a big, international face to promote it.

"The purpose with which the campaign was launched seems to have worked as suddenly, everybody is talking about the brand. But if it has crossed the line by violating advertisement guidelines, that is a serious matter and should be tackled properly."