{"id":33176,"date":"2023-01-21T02:05:10","date_gmt":"2023-01-20T20:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=33176"},"modified":"2025-04-19T19:53:57","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T14:23:57","slug":"endorsement-guidelines-for-celebrities-and-social-media-influencers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/endorsement-guidelines-for-celebrities-and-social-media-influencers\/","title":{"rendered":"Endorsement Guidelines for Celebrities and Social Media Influencers"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is the need to issue new guidelines for Social-media Influencers?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What are new guidelines issued by the Central Government?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI)?\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>How does ASCI take action against Advertisements?\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Central Government has released the endorsement guidelines for celebrities and social media influencers.<\/li>\n<li>The guidelines mandate compulsory disclosure of monitory or material benefits of a product or a brand they are promoting through their social media platforms.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Failing to do so will attract a penalty up to Rs 50 lakh.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is the need to issue new guidelines for Social-media Influencers?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The \u00a0size of the social-media influencer market in India last year was Rs 1,275 crore and by 2025, it was likely to be Rs 2,800 crore.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Individuals or groups with access to an audience and have the power to affect its purchasing decisions or opinions about a product, service, brand or experience.<\/li>\n<li>There are <strong>more than 100,000 social-media influencers<\/strong> of substance, and this calls for a check.<\/li>\n<li>Therefore, the responsibility of the endorsers or other advertisers is to honestly disclose the information that consumers must know before making any purchasing decisions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are new guidelines issued by the Central Government?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Department of Consumer Affairs under Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution released a guide \u2018<strong>Endorsements Know-hows!<\/strong>\u2019 for celebrities, influencers and virtual influencers on social media platforms.<\/li>\n<li>The guide aims to ensure that <strong>individuals do not mislead their audiences when endorsing products or services<\/strong> and that they are in compliance with the Consumer Protection Act and any associated rules or guidelines.<\/li>\n<li>The major guidelines include \u2013\u00a0\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Disclosures must be Prominent \u2013\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The guidelines specify that disclosures must be prominently and clearly displayed in the endorsement, making them extremely <strong>hard to miss<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>This includes not only benefits and incentives, but also monetary or other compensation, trips or hotel stays, media barters, coverage and awards, free products, etc.<\/li>\n<li>Endorsements must be made in simple, clear language and terms such as &#8220;advertisement,&#8221; &#8220;sponsored,&#8221; or &#8220;paid promotion&#8221; can be used.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>They <strong>should not endorse any product or service and service in which due diligence has been done by them or that they have not personally used or experienced<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Penalty \u2013\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>On non-compliance with the guidelines, endorsers may face penalties including a fine up to Rs 10 lakh, which can go up to Rs 50 lakh on recurring violations.<\/li>\n<li>Influencers and celebrities can be debarred from endorsements on repeated infringements and <strong>may go to jail for six months, which can be extended to two years<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI)?\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Advertising Standards Council of India is a voluntary self-regulatory organization of the advertising industry in India.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Established in <strong>1985<\/strong>, ASCI is registered as a non-profit company under the Company Act.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Objective \u2013 <\/strong>To maintain and enhance the public&#8217;s confidence in advertising.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Their mandate is that all material must be truthful, legal and honest, decent and not objectify women, safe for consumers &#8211; especially children and last but not the least, fair to their competitors.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How does ASCI take action against Advertisements?\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Post receiving the complaints, ASCI processes them as per its normal complaint redressal procedure involving its <strong>Consumer Complaints Council (CCC)<\/strong> for adjudication.<\/li>\n<li>If the complaint is upheld then the ad will need to be modified or pulled out as is applicable for all complaints.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Currently 100% of TV advertisements and over 80% print advertisements against whom a complaint is upheld by ASCI\u2019s are modified or withdrawn.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What is Consumer Protection Act, 2019?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Consumer Protection Act, 2019 is <strong>a law to protect the interests of the consumers<\/strong>. This Act provides safety to consumers regarding defective products, dissatisfactory services, and unfair trade practices.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) Who is a Social Media Influencer?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>A Social Media Influencer is <strong>a user on social media who has established credibility in a specific industry<\/strong>. These content creators have access to a large audience and can share information to persuade others through their authenticity and reach.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.business-standard.com\/article\/current-affairs\/centre-steps-in-to-regulate-endorsements-by-social-media-influencers-123012001092_1.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Centre issues endorsement norms to rein in social media influencers<\/u><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pib.gov.in\/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1892527\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>PIB<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Endorsements are a form of advertising that uses famous personalities or celebrities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":33177,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-33176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}