A couple of months ago, I was invited to a product launch that was to deploy an influencer campaign. It was a room full of eager-eyed influencers, all dressed in the brand’s colours. I spoke to them about influencer transparency and being compliant with the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) codes and the law.
The overwhelming feeling I had was relief at not being a brand custodian who had to hand over their much-protected brand to creators outside their system, whose content they have only a measure of control over!
Influencers are an important part of the marketing landscape now. As attention fragments and traditional advertising struggles to hold sway, brands are increasingly shifting marketing spends toward influencers—creators who promise authenticity, reach and direct engagement.
But with the decentralisation of brand ownership comes a few serious questions—who is accountable when influence goes wrong? What should the corrective steps be?
And perhaps most importantly, how can consumers be protected from influencers who surreptitiously market to them?
According to the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) Annual Complaints Report 2025, influencer- advertising continues to be a concern.
Top violating advertisers often reach that dubious position because of dependence on influencer campaigns. While brands have marketing objectives and consumers have expectations, the influencer is still poorly regulated and often uninformed.
Till November, ASCI processed 1,409 influencer cases. A total of 835 were to ads disallowed by law.
Of the remaining 574, as many as 94 per cent were in violation of ASCI’s influencer guidelines.
ASCI also conducted its second dipstick study of Forbes India’s Top 100 Digital Stars 2024, who collectively command a following of over 11 crore. The study revealed an increase in the number of influencers failing to disclose paid collaborations—76 per cent vs 69 per cent the previous year, resulting in non-compliance with both ASCI’s Influencer Advertising Guidelines and the Regulatory disclosure norms underlined by the Central Consumer Protection Authority of the government.
While regulations are in place, with the ASCI Code as well as the CCPA guidelines, what the industry needs is professionalism.
A recent study by WPP Media’s influencer and content marketing solutions company, The Goat Agency, and marketing data analytics platform Kantar, said India’s influencer marketing industry touched Rs 3,600 crore in 2024 and will grow by 25 per cent this year.
The Kantar Influencer Playbook underscored why: 67 per cent of Indians trust recommendations from influencers over traditional advertising.
ASCI’s Influencer Trust Report, released in February 2023, found influencer trust at 79 per cent, with 90 per cent of respondents having made a purchase based on influencer endorsements.
Influence is evolving rapidly from a marketing conduit to a cultural force. Influencing is now not a side hustle, but a vocation—it needs norms, responsibilities and compliance. Platforms that earn revenue from influencer marketing must ensure that audiences are not exploited. Else, the entire online space turns unsafe for consumers.
• Be transparent when there is a material connection.
• Know disclosure norms under the ASCI Guidelines and the Consumer Protection Act.
• Refuse endorsements for products or services that are misleading, harmful or beyond their domain of knowledge.
• Be accountable for the ripple effects of their influence, especially in sectors like finance, health, education and gaming, where the impact of misinformation can be serious.
The question isn’t whether influencer marketing is effective—it clearly is. The real challenge is whether it will be responsible and sustainable in the long term.
Some steps in that direction are already underway—self-regulators like ASCI are expanding digital monitoring to track influencer activity, while there is also a push for influencer certification programmes to create awareness and industry training opportunities
Besides training and tracking, it is important that laws pertaining to influencer content are regularly enforced. Wilful and repeat offenders must be penalised to create a levelplaying field for those who wish to be truthful and transparent.
Influencer marketing today is a patchwork of popularity contests and paid-for posts. Will it mature into a credible, creative and compliant industry segment? The stakes are high for brands, influencers and consumers. The benefits of influencer marketing are there for all to see. But whether this sustains in the long term will depend on the actions taken today to professionalise this juggernaut.
The author is CEO and Secretary-General of the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI).
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.
