The ASCI issues final guidelines for Influencer Advertising on Digital Media

The Advertising Standards Council of India launched an ASCI social platform and issued final guidelines on influencer advertising on digital media.

There's no denying that as an audience we've consumed a lot more content on digital media ever since the first lockdown in 2020. Which in turn led to tons of new faces on platforms like Instagram, creating content and keeping us engaged. How often do you come across branded content on an influencer's account on social media but can't tell if it's a genuine review or a paid promotion? The new ASCI-issued guidelines are here to change exactly that! Today, the Advertising Standards Council of India unveiled the final guidelines on influencer advertising on digital media that covers all kinds of content - static posts, reels, IGTV, videos, stories etc.

Feedback from 25 stakeholders including advertisers, agencies, influencers and consumers was taken to draft these guidelines. To make sure that this is a smooth process, ASCI tied up with Big Bang Social, a leading marketplace for social storytelling, to get India’s leading digital influencers’ views on board.

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On attending this webinar, we received a lot of clarity on what these guidelines will mean for creators, brands and the audience as well. In our opinion, these guidelines will help influencers build credibility for themselves by being transparent about promotional content and will also give the viewer an opportunity to make an informed decision about the product/service in question. While posts with hashtags like #sponsored #ad #paidpartnership are off-putting, staying in the blind about what really is branded content is worse. These guidelines will be put into effect on advertisements on all platforms from June 14, 2021. And the biggest point these guidelines put forth is that influencers have to label promotional content with specific hashtags.

How will ASCI monitor potential violations of these guidelines, you ask? ASCI has identified a French technology provider, Reech. Manisha Kapoor, Secretary General, ASCI said “The Reech Influence Cloud platform uses Artificial Intelligence to identify lack of disclosure on posts of a commercial nature on social media.

If you're wondering what these guidelines are and how they affect the audience like you and me, head over to the ASCI website here and check out their guidelines.

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