In recent years, there has been a rapid expansion in the influencer marketing landscape in India, where social media influencers promote products and services across various platforms. This surge has led to challenges surrounding transparency, accountability, and consumer protection. In order to address these concerns, the Indian Influencer Governance Council ("IIGC"), founded in February 2025, has introduced the Code of Standards ("Code"), a set of self-regulatory guidelines aimed at fostering ethical practices within the influencer marketing ecosystem.
The Code seeks to establish a guided framework for influencers to follow in the creation of digital content. While addressing specific concerns, and identifying prohibited practices, the Code seeks to establish the following key principles:
- Transparency
The Code mandates the disclosure of paid partnerships to enhance the transparency within the digital marketing sphere. In order to build consumer trust and ensure compliance with advertising regulations, any material partnership between an influencer and a brand must be clearly disclosed. The term "material" would include any relationships between brands and influencers where the influencer receives monetary payments, free products, services or experiences, commissions, sponsorships or where the influencer has a familial, employment or business relationship with the brand. Disclosures should be placed in a post, caption, video or article and the platform-specific disclosure tools should be used. In instances where the influencers genuinely admire a brand, the Code encourages the influencers to distinguish the same from a paid partnership by using the hashtag '#Admiration'. This hashtag reflects the influencer's support for the brands, products or services, based purely on their personal preference and appreciation.
- Authenticity
The Code promotes authentic engagement with the audiences and has prohibited the manipulation of engagement metrics, including buying fake followers and artificially increasing views. This would ensure that the audiences, and the brands engaging such influencers, are not misled by the metrics advertised by the influencers. The influencers are also responsible for ensuring that any product or service that they promote is authentic, accurate and is not deceiving the audiences. Influencers must not exaggerate, fabricate or misrepresent a product's effectiveness, benefits or capacity and should only endorse products that they have personally used or tested. The opinions published by the influencers should reflect both the pros and cons of the product and should not represent the product as flawless. The Code encourages influencers to check product legitimacy, avoid endorsement of counterfeit or unethical products, ensure that any advice published by them (including financial and investment advice) is accurate, and avoid any endorsement of unapproved medical treatments.
- Ethical Content
The Code emphasizes that the language and tone used in the content should be respectful, inclusive, and mindful of diverse audiences. The Code emphasizes that all content that includes slurs, derogatory or demeaning terms, or content that incites hate, discrimination or spreads misinformation is prohibited. The influencers are required to ensure that their content is accessible to people with disabilities, and are encouraged to promote positive conversations, build social awareness and ensure the accuracy of information published by them. Influencers must ensure that their content does not exploit, degrade, or demean any individual or groups on the basis of their race, gender, socioeconomic status, physical appearance or any other factor. The Code promotes the creation of ethical content, focusing on human dignity. The Code further stresses the need to obtain proper consent from individuals being featured in the content published by the influencers.
- Fair Practices
While emphasizing the importance of ensuring compliance with laws and regulations both nationally and internationally, the Code specifically addresses the ethical and transparency concerns surrounding AI influencers. AI influencers, whether full or hybrid, must adhere to the same standards as human influencers, while ensuring that there is clear and unambiguous disclosure of their non-human nature. AI influencers should be used primarily to enhance the storytelling and engagement of the content and should not be used to deceive or manipulate the audiences. AI influencers should not falsely imply personal use or experience with products they promote, and AI models should not mimic the likeness, voice or persona of any real individual, dead or alive, unless properly licensed and disclosed.
- Consumer Protection
Influencers are responsible for ensuring that their content does not promote harmful or unsafe practices, but rather should ensure that the content encourages well-being, responsible decision making and adherence to health and safety regulations. The Code promotes the consultation of experts, and compliance with health regulations in the promotion of any content related to health and safety. The Code requires influencers to ensure that all data claims made by them are accurate, transparent and verifiable. Since data claims hold significant weight in the influencer marketing sphere, misinformation would harm public trust and consumer confidence.
As children are highly impressionable, influencers who publish content targeted at, or accessible to, minors, are required to ensure that the content is safe, ethical and developmentally appropriate. Such content should not include any manipulative advertising, promotion of adult products, undisclosed product placement, exploitation of children's emptions and should not encourage excessive screen time. The influencers would have the duty to create safe, positive and responsible content.
- Responsible Criticism
Defluence, or the act of an influencer publicly criticising or speaking negatively about a brand, product or service may have significant consequences on the audience, brand reputation or consumer trust. The Code specifies that while influencers have the right to express honest opinions, their criticism should be responsible, factual and free from misinformation or personal bias. While the influencers are encouraged to provide honest feedback, the influencers must present such feedback with integrity, fairness and respect for consumer trust.
In addition to the aforementioned key principles, the Code further introduces standards to ensure that influencers maintain effective relationships with the brands they engage. In order to safeguard influencers from any delayed or unfair payment, the influencers are required to ensure that a signed agreement is in place with the brand, clearly setting out all the commercial terms applicable to the arrangement. The contract should contain the deliverables, specify the exact scope of work, including the number of posts, as well as the platforms and formats to be used by the influencer and the expected timeline for the same, specify the terms outlining payment, including mode of payment and due dates, and contain clauses outlining the eventualities if the contract is cancelled or rescheduled after the work has begun. The Code further requires the influencers to maintain a clear record of all the deliverables created under the agreement, either through maintenance of the screenshots of the content posted, or links to the posts created. The influencers would also be required to share the analytics and insight reports with the brand if they request it. If there are chronic delays in payment, the Code encourages the influencers to approach legal professionals to enforce contracts, and industry associations to report such delays.
Apart from establishing best practises and standards to be met by the social media influencers, the IIGC would also be receiving consumer complaints regarding the content published by influencers. The IIGC will thoroughly review these complaints and issue verdicts based on their findings and the influencer's compliance with the Code.
The self-regulatory guidelines signify pivotal shift towards a more ethical and transparent influencer marketing ecosystem. These measures aim to protect consumers, uphold credibility of influencers and ensure that the marketing practices contribute positively to the digital landscape. While these guidelines are a step in the right direction, it is important to note that the Code is not enforceable. Collaboration between the IIGC and government authorities would be essential to ensure that the digital marketing sphere is adequately regulated.
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