ASCI – Dutch Uncles

New ASCI Guidelines for Influencer Marketing

Shalmoli Sarkar — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 03:35:04 +0000

Past few years, influencer marketing has witnessed an unexpected rise in India thanks to the high consumption of social media, deluge of affordable smartphones, and data plans. According to digital marketing agency AdLift, India’s influencer market is pegged at $75-150 million a year, as compared to the global market of $1.75 billion. Marketers are increasingly shifting to invest in influencer marketing knowing that an influencer is armed with a huge follower base where brands can be amplified authentically.

Why ASCI had to set guidelines for influencer marketing ?

As more and more Indians get connected with the internet and social media they interact with a plethora of brands daily, which is somewhat erasing the lines between promotional content and user-generated content. People nowadays, especially the Gen Z generation, follow influencers with their heart and soul since, for many, their influence is a stark reflection of their personality and behaviour. When an influencer endorses the benefits of a brand or service in his/her social media handles, followers get swayed from the brand stories they create. Till date, influencers in their social media posts do not reveal that it is a paid activity, the content of the ad is being decided by the brand that might convey unrealistic claims to the audience via the influencer’s voice. Many alcohol brands have exploited this ‘unrevealing of paid media’ and have broken the cocoon of surrogate advertising to openly advertise their alcohol brands in collaboration with stand-up comedians. To safeguard the interests of consumers, influencers, and marketeers, influencer marketing has come under the scanner of advertising watchdog ASCI to set up guidelines for bringing transparency in communications.

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According to digital marketing agency AdLift, India's influencer market is pegged at $75-150 million a year, as compared to the global market of $1.75 billion.

What are the ASCI guidelines?

The Advertising Standards Council of India ( ASCI) was established in 1985, it is a self-regulatory voluntary organisation of the advertising industry in India. It is a non-Government body.Below are the ASCI guidelines for influencer marketing that will be effective from 14 June 2021:

Influencers are required to place disclosures in a manner that should not be hidden under a heap of hashtags or links.
If ads or videos are posted on Instagram stories or Snapchat, then putting a disclosure label superimposed over the content is compulsory. Disclosure terms such as advertisements, ads, sponsored, collaboration, partnership, employee, and gift can be used.
Videos lasting for 15 seconds or less, the disclosure label must stay for a minimum of 3 seconds.
For Videos lasting for two minutes or more the disclosure label must stay for the entire duration of the section in which the brand is promoted or its features and benefits are mentioned.
For videos of duration more than 15 seconds, but less than 2 minutes, the disclosure label should stay for one-third the length of the video.
A disclosure is required if there is any material connection or transaction between the brand and influencer. The material connection is not confined to money but if the brand offers any free or discounted products or services or other perks and then if the influencer mentions one of its products or services, disclosure is mandatory.

How the new ASCI guidelines on influencer marketing will impact the businesses?

When influencers do not reveal that promotion is paid, it gives brands the benefit to make it look like an earned media, which is synonymous with ‘word of mouth marketing’ showcasing that the influencer is willingly promoting the brand without being approached by the brand. Influencers smoothened the tone to make it look less of a promotion as it would reduce the engagement with content, which is bad news for influencers as well. According to a study by Neilsen, 92 percent of consumers trust earned media such as word-of-mouth and recommendations from friends and family or influencers over other forms of advertising. Since, the labels of disclosures were not mandated, brands had the power to dictate the influencer about the promotion content, therefore, disseminating exaggerated claims. Even though social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube have in-built features to disclose if an influencer is posting sponsored content, influencers could easily get away by not revealing it as a paid activity.

The guidelines will help brands to do intent-based marketing. Influencer content showing the disclaimer of a brand promoted will help viewers to decide on a purchase. If they engage with your ad further it will imply, he/she has the purchase intent.

The post New ASCI Guidelines for Influencer Marketing appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

WhiteHat Junior: The Story After Acquisition

Shalmoli Sarkar — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 00:35:04 +0000

Schools shut, hobby classes closed, empty playgrounds, and meeting less with friends. This is what the entire year looked like for school children in the pandemic. However, if Covid-19 caused a slump to several businesses, it has also opened new avenues. In a pandemic-stricken year, some technology-based businesses, especially edtech, received tailwinds which helped them to grow. Founded in 2018, Whitehat Jr. is the brainchild of Karan Bajaj, a former CEO of Discovery India. He started this first-of-its-kind ed-tech startup to enable kids of age group 6-14 years to learn coding virtually. It aims to create the next generation of coders, app developers with its one-to-one video interaction class to learn coding. As schools and hobby classes quickly transitioned online, it became a golden opportunity for Whitehat Jr with its unique proposition to make children learn coding themselves from anywhere in the world. We are surrounded by a world of applications that are intended to make our lives easier. With schools closed and kids having enough spare time, parents considered that time perfect for kids to learn something new and stay ahead. Currently, WhiteHat Jr. enjoys a fan base of 150,000 students, over 400,000 projects, has over 500 teachers, and has gained maximum traction from Tier-II and Tier-III cities.

The game of acquisition

Online coding platforms for kids became a lucrative segment in the K-12 space in the ed-tech sector. 2020 saw several edtech platforms leaping forward to launch their coding learning platforms. Vedantu launched Super Coders in May and Coding Ninjas and Toppr launched Coding Ninjas Junior and Toppr Coder respectively in July. Seeing WhiteHat Jr.’s tremendous growth, edtech behemoth Byju’s too jumped into the online coding bandwagon by acquiring WhiteHat Jr. worth $300 million in an all-cash transaction in August.

The blitzkrieg of advertisements

After Byju’s acquired WhiteHat Jr, it wanted to get the word out to the masses and hence began its aggressive advertising on all social media platforms. It spent a whopping sum of Rs 10-15 crores on digital platforms. Its hi-decibel advertising was definitely noticed by the people, but unfortunately, it drew flak from social media users and soon became the troll stock. The ads were largely criticized as they popped out of nowhere to an audience that did not belong to its target group. Many social media users found the tone of the ads to be evoking emotions of ‘Fear Of Missing Out’ and push parents to enroll their children. The social media ads used the pictures and quotes of tech giants like Sundar Pichai, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates. This was highly criticized by parents as they found the ads to be unethical and misleading. It demonstrated that school-goers should aspire to be like them and should learn coding from an early age to become tech moguls like them. This message creates unnecessary peer pressure at the back of a kid’s mind as well as parents who will feel that their child will lag if he/she does not know coding. However, a child needs a strong academic foundation and that is the only crucial necessity. One of the most misleading ads was a TV commercial where it showed how global investors are fighting tooth and nail to fund a coding project made by a child.

Wolf Gupta Vs Pradeep Poonia

The ads of WhiteHat Jr further got embroiled into controversies when it used the name ‘Wolf Gupta’ in its social media ads who has bagged a career in Google with a package worth 1.2 Crore or 150 Crore. His age varied in different social media posts from 9, 12 or sometimes 13 years. The ad has shamed kids who naturally play video games or cartoons at that age and has lauded Wolf Gupta who, being of the same age as the ‘video game player kids’, has received a job offer from Google. A 30-year-old engineer Pradeep Poonia claimed that Wolf Gupta is a fictional character used by WhiteHat Jr in its ad content and to give Wolf Gupta credibility, WhiteHat Jr. has created a fake LinkedIn profile. Pradeep Poonia, later on, leveraged all his social media handles and highlighted this to educate people about the trap behind the ad. It led WhiteHat Jr. to file a defamation case against Pradeep Poonia.

ASCI and WhiteHat Jr.

The WhiteHat Jr ads soon came under the scanner of the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) that found five of its advertisements to be violating the ASCI code. Manisha Kapoor, Secretary-General of ASCI quoted that the advertisements violated The Emblems and Name (Prevention of Improper Use) Act and has asked the advertiser to withdraw the ads from social media.

It is evident here that if the brand is a digital-first brand, the trick is to listen to what people are saying about you on social media. Hounding to the wrong audience with irrelevant ads becomes a nuisance that erodes the brand image.

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