Govt to ask wellness, health influencers to display qualification

Consumer affairs dept deploys advanced tech to ensure compliance

The government is raising its regulation of influencers up a notch with guidelines for those promoting brands and products related to healthcare and wellness, a burgeoning category that has a direct impact on people’s health, Rohit Kumar Singh, secretary to the department of consumer affairs, told Business Standard in an interview.

The guidelines will make it mandatory for the influencers to disclose their qualifications for dispensing advice on health and wellness. These qualifications must be displayed in an obvious manner for their audience to see and read. This comes in the wake of the department’s guidelines issued last month for all social media influencers and celebrities asking them to disclose their relationship with what they endorse and whether they derive any benefit — money or material — from the endorsement.

“If you are saying this food is good or bad, that this medicine is good, you must be qualified and disclose that you are qualified to say that. Otherwise, it can be majorly misleading,” Singh said.

India’s market for nutraceuticals — fortified foodstuff that claims to provide health benefits in addition to basic nutrition — is projected to be worth $18 billion by 2025, of which dietary supplements are expected to be 65 per cent and growing at 17 per cent a year, according to a report by International Trade Administration. 

More recent projections are higher, with some experts pegging India’s nutraceuticals market at $100 billion by 2030.

A month ago, the consumer affairs department issued guidelines for social media influencers as well as celebrities to ensure their audiences are not misled. The guidelines say endorsements must be made in simple and clear language and terms such as “advertisement”, “sponsored”, “collaboration”, or “paid promotion” be used clearly for paid or barter arrangements. Individuals must not endorse products or services they have not used or on which they have not done due diligence.

Similarly, the Securities and Exchange Board of India is focused on financial sector influencers, those giving unsolicited financial and stock market advice, and unregulated investment advisors. Last week, the stock markets regulator issued an advertisement code for investment advisors and research analysts.

The next target is health and wellness, where influencers have become a vital tool for marketing and promotion. Even if a brand engages with a celebrity endorser, several of them still use legions of influencers as a complimentary strategy. Especially after the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, as people turned more to preventive healthcare, there has been an explosion of advice through social media posts and quick videos on managing health, wellness, fitness, and weight. Vitamin D, for instance, is a commonly advised supplement.

“In terms of sectoral importance, this is quite important; it is directly related to people’s health,” Singh said.

However, the consumer affairs department favours a soft-touch approach and self-regulation while deploying advanced technology to ensure compliance. “First you try to educate them. These are mostly young people and it is a question of revenues for them. We do not want to interfere with the model. What we are wary of is the consumer being taken for a ride,” Singh said.

A month ago, Singh, using a video link, addressed a gathering of 250 influencers in Mumbai and reiterated that they must disclose if they were benefiting from the brands they endorsed.

The focus now moves to compliance, which has become a challenge because the violators often use ads and promotions that would be there for no more than 30 minutes or so, and disappear before the authorities can detect them.

Singh’s department is countering technology with technology and deploying crawling algorithms to catch the innovative violators.

“The violators are getting innovative. Now we are trying to use technology. There are crawlers that alert you about such ads and we can take action. It is a cat and mouse thing, but the idea is deterrence,” said Singh.

Code on the anvil
 

> Qualifications of health and wellness influencers must be displayed in an obvious manner for audience to see and read

> India’s market for nutraceuticals is projected to be worth $18 billion by 2025

> 65% of nutraceuticals market is dietary supplements, growing at 17%

> Health and wellness influencers have become vital for promotion

> Their advice has a direct impact on people’s health