The Department of Consumer Affairs on Monday released detailed guidelines for social media and virtual influencers as well as celebrities which are aimed at ensuring that such individuals do not mislead their audience while endorsing products or services.
\nThe guidelines titled \u201cEndorsements Know-hows\u201d have also been prepared to ensure that endorsements undertaken by such individuals are in compliance with the Consumer Protection Act.
\nThe guidelines state that endorsements must be made in simple, clear language, and terms such as \u201cadvertisement\u201d, \u201csponsored\u201d, \u201ccollaboration\u201d or \u201cpaid promotion\u201d are used clearly.
\nIndividuals must not endorse any product or service that they have not personally used or experienced or in which due diligence has not been done by them, the guidelines noted.
\nThe department has noted that there is confusion regarding which disclosure word should be used for what kind of partnership.
\nTherefore, for paid or barter brand endorsement, disclosure words like \u201cadvertisement\u201d \u201cad\u201d \u201csponsored\u201d \u201ccollaboration\u201d or \u201cpartnership\u201d should be used.
\nHowever, the term must be indicated as hashtag or in headline text, the guidelines say.
\nThe guidelines specify that individuals or groups who have access to an audience and the power to affect their audiences\u2019 purchasing decisions or opinions about a product, service, brand, or experience, because of the influencer\u2019s or celebrity\u2019s authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with their audience, must be disclosed.
\nThey further stated that the disclosure must be placed in the endorsement message in a manner that is clear, prominent and extremely hard to miss.
\nDisclosures should not be mixed with a group of hashtags or links.
\nFor endorsements in a picture, disclosures should be superimposed over the image enough for viewers to notice.
\nFor endorsements in a video or a live stream, disclosures should be made in both audio and video format and displayed continuously and prominently during the entire stream.
\nThe guidelines advise celebrities and influencers to always review and satisfy themselves that the advertiser is in a position to substantiate the claims made in the advertisement.
\nIt is also recommended that the product and service must actually been used or experienced by the endorser.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Department of Consumer Affairs on Monday released detailed guidelines for social media and virtual influencers as well as celebrities which are aimed at ensuring that such individuals do not mislead their audience while endorsing products or services. The guidelines titled \u201cEndorsements Know-hows\u201d have also been prepared to ensure that endorsements undertaken by such individuals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4170,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,13,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-latest-news","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8347"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8348,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8347\/revisions\/8348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}