Influencer marketing is the marketing strategy of the 21st century. In the past few years, every brand has increased its budgets for influencer marketing and come with new campaigns and collaboration with influencers because of the high conversion rate, larger ROI, and increased brand awareness.
This strategy has become so successful and will continue to grow in the coming years as we witness more and more bloggers, influencers, and celebrities coming up.
The need for the hour
Social media influencer marketing is at its peak today, but haven’t we heard about the cases of false advertising campaigns or false claims by any influencer on a brand or vice versa? Or conflict between brand for the influencers or any consumers complaining about the brand or influencer authenticity? Yes, to put all these issues to rest, there are some drafted guidelines by ASCI which will benefit the entire influencer community.
The advertising standard council of India has introduced some guidelines in the past week that are related to digital marketing platforms and social media influencer marketing. These guidelines would ensure the safety of consumer’s interests and also make sure that false advertising is not being done.
The game-changer
The guidelines will ensure complete clarity for the audience as well as for the marketers.
In the case of audio content, wherein description is not mentioned, the audio content must have disclosure either at the start or the end of the video.
The second guidelines stated that all the posts or videos of the influencer must have disclosure in their description that is #ad#COLLAB#Sponsored#promo or # partnership in the first two lines of the description.
The draft also stated that in case there is no description on the post of the influencer, then the disclosure must be superimposed on the video or post.
The disclosure in the post or video must be in English or any other language that is understood well by the audience.
Labeling that is the disclosure should be visible on every device be it a laptop, phone, or tablet.
Filters should not be applied to show for more than what the brand is providing, it will lead to false claims.
These guidelines will ensure that there is no false claim made by any influencers or by advertiser. Influencer marketing works because audiences completely trust the influencer and their choices, and these guidelines will ensure whether the content is genuine or not.
It will result in clarity between all the parties.
Also read our blog on Ethical Concerns In Digital Marketing
The Final Word
In the advertising industry, many experts are praising these guidelines and calling it a move that is in favor of everybody because often the target audience gets cheated. ASCI’s new advertising guidelines are not only beneficial to influencers but also the PR teams, marketing agencies, and media houses.
This great move will result in great changes.
If you have any extra information, do share with us in the comments below.
