Right click for ‘influencer’ advertising

ASCI’S draft guidelines are a move in the right direction in clarifying branded content deals on social media platforms

Earlier this month, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) released draft guidelines for “Influencer advertising on digital media”. While much has been said about the importance of having proper rules governing influencers given their rise on different social media platforms, there is the issue of how platforms will deal with these changes as well.

Broadly, the ASCI has proposed rules for social media influencers who promote or run paid content without adequate disclosures.

“With lines between content and advertisements becoming blurry, it is critical that consumers must be able to distinguish when something is being promoted with an intention to influence their opinion or behaviour for an immediate or eventual commercial gain. Consumers may view promotional messages without realising the commercial intent of these, and that becomes inherently misleading,” the ASCI guidelines say, explaining the intent of having these rules.

Influencers are essentially people on a platform with a huge following (and thus, reach), who can earn money through branded content deals or advertising products through the content they create.

These include film celebrities, sports stars, and content creators who have created a niche of their own and command huge following. All these influencers, because of their reach, often promote products and services, but in the absence of clear guidelines, there was never an obligation on social media celebrities or influencers to make these disclosures.

Increasingly, people are being led to buy things by seeing their favourite celebrities post and promote products through social media channels.

According to a report by Bain & Co in partnership with Sequoia India last year, India’s social commerce sector is a $1.5 billion-$2 billion market (in terms of gross merchandise value or GMV), and has the potential to grow to $16 billion$20 billion in just five years, increasing to $60 billion-$70 billion by 2030.

Given these statistics, it is imperative that like other traditional modes of advertising, there should be a grievance redress mechanism or clearly outlined rules about what constitutes advertisements.

Although the attempt by ASCI is to ensure there is no misleading promotion by anyone, platforms are still figuring out how to help compliance. ASCI does not put the onus of improperly disclosed paid content on platforms, but it does work to educate users and influencers on how to declare promotions and advertisements properly.

The platforms, which are identified as intermediaries, have an existing set of laws and the recent rules on social media that govern content posted on them.

An executive with a large social media firm said companies are still studying the proposed guidelines, and looking to see how these things have been dealt with in other geographical markets.

“Given the rise and scale of these platforms, it will be very difficult for them to monitor things in real time in terms of influencer updates,” says Shrenik Gandhi, CEO, White Rivers Media.

The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC), for example, has very detailed guidelines on what constitutes endorsements and promotions.

It asks influencers to take responsibility for disclosure, and disclose financial, employment, personal, or family relationship with a brand, use of a free or discounted product from a brand, and also cites that foreign laws may apply if an influencer posts from outside of the US for a primarily Usbased audience.

Apart from brand endorsements, ASCI has also asked influencers to label their posts as ads if they receive a payment or barter for promoting a product, service or brand, if they have included a discount code/hyperlink where they would get a commission on clicks or sales generated via the link or code, and if they will receive a free product/service/incentive/hospitality/free trip/discounts or

any other benefits for making the post.

However, both FTC and ASCI have asked for a recognition of an endorsement to be made upfront, using hashtags such as “#ad”, “#collab”, “#promotion” and so on.

Platforms could step in and provide a better way to do this. For instance, Instagram has a “Paid partnership with …” label that can be put up above individual posts. Similarly, Facebook provides a “paid partnership” label through its brand collaboration tools.

Facebook, which owns Instagram, has a detailed information section on helping influencers and brand promoters figure out what they need to do in terms of disclosures, and what type of tagging or disclosure violates which policy.

Going forward, as more countries wake up to the ills of improperly declared advertising, platforms may have to build and maintain more country-specific frequently asked questions (FAQS) or information pages.

Similarly, Google-owned Youtube has a detailed description of how content should be tagged and what action can be taken for improperly tagged paid promotional content.

“If your content has a paid product placement, endorsement, or other commercial relationship, you need to tell Youtube so that we can facilitate disclosures to users. Note that you may have more obligations depending on the laws in your jurisdiction. If you don’t follow those obligations, we may take action against your content or account,” the Youtube help page reads.

Twitter also provides a “Promoted” label, but those are usually used by brands that advertise on the platform, not influencers or social media celebrities who often make a product a part of the content they create.

“It’s not a compulsion as of now, to declare a paid partnership. Platform-level innovations are required to kind of put across or put aside influencer vis-a-vis normal content,” added Gandhi.

It is also important to remember that the rules that platforms have mentioned are not India-specific yet and may require separate FAQS or geographically relevant information once the ASCI proposals get formalised. The advertising body has invited comments on the proposed guidelines until March 8.

For grievance redress, ASCI has said it “will issue a notice to both brand owner and influencer for violation of any guideline in the case of a consumer complaint or suo motu cognisance of a potentially objectionable advertisement”.

While ASCI has mentioned, as examples, how paid content can be marked on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat, there is a huge plethora of social media platforms that have come up, especially after the exit of Tiktok from the India market.

A big challenge for ASCI would be to keep track of all these platforms and take action. A consumer awareness drive, initiated by the platforms themselves, could also be one of the ways to enlighten users who consume social media content day in and day out.

Overall, there is no doubt that the market addressed by influencers is huge, and they are a great way for brands to reach out to potential customers because of the traction of social media platforms. These rules governing misleading advertisements, therefore, are an important area to be addressed, and a step in the right direction.

A big challenge for ASCI would be to keep track of all social media platforms and take action. A consumer awareness drive could be one of the ways to enlighten users