Social media influencers ALERT: This is what ASCI Chairman Subhash Kamath says on non-compliance of guidelines

The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) is all set to keep an eye on social media influencers with its new guidelines. The influencers guidelines will be issued by June 15, 2021. Speaking about the guidelines ASCI Chairman, Subhash Kamath said that the guidelines will be issued in order to enable people to know if the content is paid or sponsored.

ASCI Chairman said that when people watch television or read newspapers then they can easily distinguish between the program or content and the advertisement. They do not face any kind of confusion, but it is difficult to differentiate in social media.

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"When a social media influencer speaks about a product then it is not clear how to differentiate if it is a content or advertisement. Therefore, we have come up with these guidelines. All responsible influencers, if they are doing it for sponsored reasons or paid reasons then they should inform this to their followers," Kamath added.

He further said that this transparency will also add a lot of credibility to the influencer. It will be for all three that is the consumers, influencers, and brands. He said that the guidelines for influencers have been decided after discussing it with everyone.

Speaking on what will happen if influencers do not follow the norms and do not inform whether the content is paid or sponsored, Kamath said that if they will violate the rules consistently then the matter will be reported to the sector regulator.

"For monitoring purpose, we have a tie-up with a French company. The company has an artificial intelligence-based technology tool which will monitor and inform if the influencers have informed about the sponsored content or not," Kamath said.

He further added "If the influencers will consistently violate the rules then we will report it to the sector regulator. Also, the third main stakeholder is the brand owner if their brand faces any negativity or lack of transparency then it will be bad for the brand and most of our members will want to do the right thing."

Kamath further said that the government can also be referred in case of non-compliance with the ASCI codes. Therefore, partnership with the government is also very important like that with the industry.