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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
For non-members as well.Who is an Influencer?Interestingly, an ‘influencer’ has been defined widely as someone who ‘has access to an audience and the power to affect their audiences’ purchasing decisions or opinions about a product, service, brand or experience, because of the influencer’s authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with their audience.’ There is no minimum threshold of followers, nor any criteria for the influencer being ‘verified’ on the social media platform to be considered an influencer. Anyone that could impact consumers’ decisions may be considered an influencer as per this definition.This is in contrast with the treatment of influencers adopted in some other jurisdictions. For instance, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has held3 that having 30,000 followers would render a blogger a ‘celebrity’ for the purposes of the UK’s Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (CAP Code). In this case, the blogger ‘ThisMamaLife’ had 30,000 followers, and her Instagram feed featured over 1000 posts that included recommendations on different products, qualifying her as a ‘celebrity.’Another interesting aspect of the Guidelines is that ‘virtual influencers’ are also covered under their ambit. Virtual influencers are defined as ‘fictional computer generated ‘people’ or avatars who have realistic characteristics, features and personalities of humans, and behave in a similar manner as influencers.’ Since virtual influencers are digitally created by individuals, it can be surmised that the obligations under the Guidelines are intended to be imposed on the entity that controls the posts of the virtual influencer.What are the obligations under the Guidelines? When do they apply?The Guidelines place compliance obligations on both influencers as well as advertisers, some of which are summarized below.Material Connection Test:The Guidelines specify that where the advertiser has a ‘material connection’ with the influencer, the advertiser must ensure that the influencer’s advertisement is compliant with ASCI’s Code
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