Draft Guidelines for Influencer Advertising

In News: The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has released Draft Guidelines for Influencer Advertising on digital media.

• The guidelines will be available for all stakeholders, including industry, digital influencers as well as consumers for feedback till March 8, 2021.

Key Highlights

• The proposed draft guidelines state that influencers should ensure “disclosure labels to highlight advertising content” and these should be upfront, prominent and clearly visible on all devices.
  •  Disclosure labels should be visible within the first two lines of any given platform.

• Advertisements must be obviously distinguishable by the average consumer from editorial and independent user-generated content, to prevent the audience from being confused between the two.
  • Therefore, a disclosure label must be added to the list of approved labels
• Influencers will also need to ensure filters are not used to exaggerate the claims of brands’ social media ads.

• The draft guidelines have also proposed the manner or the required time period for the visibility of disclosure labels’ depending on the format such as a textual post, length of the videos, live-streams, audio posts or disappearing videos.
  • For instance, if the advertisements are only a picture post (such as Instagram stories or Snapchat) or the promotional video is not accompanied by a text post, the disclosure label must be superimposed over the picture or video.

• Once these guidelines are implemented, influencers will also need to do due diligence to ensure that any technical or performance claims made by brands are well-substantiated.

Significance

• It is extremely important for consumers to be able to distinguish between regular posts and promotional content.
  • These guidelines will help consumers to identify promotional content and also guide social media influencers to become more responsible when promoting brands.”

About Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI)

• It was established in 1985.
• It is committed to the cause of Self-Regulation in Advertising, ensuring the protection of the interests of consumers.
• ASCI was formed with the support of all four sectors connected with Advertising, viz. Advertisers, Advertising Agencies, Media (including Broadcasters and the Press) and others like PR Agencies, Market Research Companies etc.

Source:ET