Caveat influencers: An ethics council is a step in the right direction

Last year, the Advertising Standards Council of India (Asci) had come up with a set of self-regulatory guidelines for influencers built around disclaimers and disclosures

Launching the India Influencer Governing Council (IIGC) last week underlines the explosive growth of the influencer market in India and the need to establish some sort of standards to govern it. Unlike its conventional counterpart, the brand-endorsement business on print and TV, the ambit of social influencers, is many orders of magnitude larger owing to the power of social media. From political and social commentary to brand and product endorsements to YouTube and instant video apps in a multitude of languages, this sprawling area has infinite visibility. No surprise, populous India is one of the world’s fastest-growing influencer markets, expected