Of the 453 complaints that ASCI took up between January and May 2022, 419 required modifications, with most complaints against influencers.
“Some influencers talk so confidently about crypto without fully understanding it. It does create an impression that it is safe, it’s fine and a cool thing,” said Manisha Kapoor, chief executive of ASCI.
Amid a bull market last year, crypto companies flooded Over The Top (OTT) and social media platforms with ads and branded promotions.
While the VDA guidelines came into effect in April this year, ASCI’s guidelines for influencer marketing took root in June last year.
Earlier this month,
Tesla CEO Elon Musk was sued for $258 billion over an alleged Dogecoin pyramid scheme. Musk was one of the key proponents of the meme coin, which brought
hordes of Indians to cryptocurrency exchanges last year.
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Top crypto exchanges such as Coin DCX and CoinSwitch Kuber brought on board Bollywood stars such as Ayushmann Khurrana and Ranveer Singh, respectively, for ad campaigns during the ICC T20 World Cup and the cash-rich Indian Premier League.
As much as
Rs 50 crore was spent by crypto platforms during the sports events, ET reported on November 16.
Financial and legal experts had
raised concerns over some ads promoting cryptos, which they said were toeing a fine line between “puffery” and “misrepresentation”.
Critics said some of these ads could lure Indians into investing in an asset class notorious for wild price swings, and without any knowledge of the risks involved.
Amid broader macroeconomic factors, crypto markets have also taken a beating, with Bitcoin – the crypto currency with the largest market value – plummeting from its 2021 highs to below $20,000 earlier this month.
ASCI will continue to focus on adequate disclosures for payment-based promotions and risks to be called out in the disclaimers. The advertising council is focussing on driving awareness with crypto exchanges, said Kapoor.
“Some of these influencer ads don’t even talk about the risks, which is not right and against our guidelines. Technically, they are ads with no disclosures or disclaimers, which is mandatory. This is in violation of our guidelines. We will escalate it to the government in case of no compliance,” she added.
In February, ASCI issued the guidelines for the promotion and advertisement of cryptocurrencies, crypto exchanges and Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs).
The guidelines, which kicked in on April 1, mandated all VDA products and services to carry the disclaimer: “Crypto products and NFTs are unregulated and can be highly risky. There may be no regulatory recourse for any loss from such transactions.”
ASCI is a self-regulatory body, and its guidelines are not legally binding.
In case of a breach, the standards body publishes the names of those who have not adhered to the guidelines and escalates cases to the relevant government regulator.
