India's influencer marketing industry is now valued at ₹3,000–3,500 crore and continues to grow at over 20 per cent annually, fuelled by millions of creators producing content across platforms. According to a recent report by the Boston Consulting Group, India is home to over 2–2.5 million monetised creators who already influence $350–400 billion in consumer spending, a figure expected to cross $1 trillion by 2030.
But, behind this remarkable growth lies an uncomfortable contradiction. Every year, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) continues to identify influencer advertising as one of the country's biggest areas of non-compliance. The industry's rules are hardly new. ASCI introduced its influencer advertising guidelines in 2021, requiring creators to clearly disclose paid partnerships so consumers can distinguish between genuine recommendations and sponsored endorsements.
Still, disclosure failures continue to surface with surprising regularity. ASCI's latest Annual Complaints Report paints a detailed picture. During the iPhone 17 launch, 21 influencer posts reviewed by the self-regulatory body were found to be non-compliant, with 95 per cent corrected only after ASCI intervened. During Black Friday sales, 90 per cent of the 31 influencer promotions examined violated disclosure norms, while more than half were modified only after being flagged. Its earlier compliance study of India's leading digital creators found that nearly 7 out of 10 influencer posts failed to carry disclosures correctly, with many omitting labels altogether and others burying them within hashtags. The pattern, ASCI says, is becoming difficult to ignore.
For Manisha Kapoor, CEO and Secretary General, ASCI, the issue is no longer one of awareness, "The challenge is not limited to any one stakeholder. Compliance breaks down at multiple points in the value chain—brands, agencies, talent managers, creators, and, to some extent, platforms, all have a role to play."
Kapoor points to a worrying behavioural pattern emerging across campaigns. Many advertisers rectify disclosures once they receive a notice, but that only highlights a larger problem. "There is a growing normalisation of violate-now-comply-later practices," she says, arguing that transparency cannot remain something brands fix after the fact.
The responsibility, she explains, is shared. ASCI's guidelines place equal accountability on advertisers and influencers, while agencies deploying growing networks of regional and micro creators must invest in training and stronger operational processes. Awareness alone, she argues, is no longer enough; disclosure has to become an integral part of campaign execution rather than a post-publication correction.
That observation raises an obvious question. If almost everyone knows the rules, what continues to stand in the way? Anupam Bansal, Executive Director, Liberty Shoes believes, the answer lies in the industry's priorities. "The ecosystem has scaled far faster on creativity and reach than it has on governance." The creator economy, he believes, has become exceptionally good at finding the right voice for the right audience. Governance, however, has struggled to keep pace, "Compliance remains a challenge industry-wide because it's been treated as a legal checkbox rather than a leadership priority, and that has to change as the medium matures further," Bansal says.
If ASCI's findings point to a systemic problem, agencies say the cracks often emerge long before a post goes live. Today's campaigns involve everyone from celebrity creators to micro and nano influencers, making compliance less about awareness and more about managing execution at scale.
Ajay Kulkarni, Business Head, Ykone Barcode, believes the industry has largely moved past the awareness stage. "If you look at the industry today, awareness around ASCI's guidelines is definitely much higher than it was a few years ago. Most brands and agencies know what is expected. The real challenge begins once a campaign moves into execution," he says.
The problem, he explains, is rarely deliberate. Content is edited at the last minute, creators repurpose posts across platforms, captions get rewritten, and somewhere along that journey, disclosures either disappear or become less prominent than they should be.
The sheer pace of creator marketing has only made the challenge harder. Established creators and talent managers are usually familiar with disclosure norms, Kulkarni notes, but every campaign today also brings first-time collaborators into the mix. Thousands of regional, micro and nano creators are entering brand partnerships for the first time, making continuous education as important as the guidelines themselves.
For him, the answer doesn't lie in pointing fingers. "Compliance is a shared responsibility. Brands need to brief clearly, agencies need to build checks into the process, talent managers need to reinforce best practices, and creators need to recognise that transparency actually strengthens their credibility with audiences." Rather than seeing disclosures as something that weakens a recommendation, Kulkarni argues they enhance it.
Vibhor Gulati, Founder, Defodio Digital, arrives at a similar conclusion—but from a different direction, "The real issue is that compliance is still treated as an afterthought instead of being built into the campaign process from day one." For Gulati, campaign conversations still revolve around creative ideas, timelines and performance metrics. Compliance enters the discussion only when content is ready for publication, leaving little room to catch missing disclosure labels, poorly placed tags or captions that have changed during production.
He believes another issue runs even deeper: accountability often becomes too diffused. "Brands assume agencies handle compliance, agencies assume creators follow the rules, and creators assume that putting a paid partnership tag on a platform is enough. When accountability is shared by everyone, it often ends up being owned by no one." That observation echoes ASCI's own assessment that responsibility lies across the ecosystem rather than with any single stakeholder.
Krisha Nair, Head of Partnerships at Plush, believes "Influencer marketing has evolved significantly, but compliance needs to evolve alongside it." For Plush, disclosure is less about satisfying regulation and more about respecting the consumer's right to know when content is sponsored. Clear labelling, Nair says, allows audiences to distinguish between personal recommendations and paid collaborations without diminishing the authenticity of either. She also believes platforms have an important role to play by making disclosure tools easier to use and ensuring creators apply them consistently.
That philosophy is reflected in how the company approaches influencer partnerships internally. Before any collaboration goes live, Plush briefs creators on disclosure requirements, incorporates compliance into its campaign guidelines, and reviews content to ensure it aligns with both ASCI's recommendations and the brand's own standards. But for the brand, compliance begins even earlier. "We send them the product, ask them to use it, and share their honest feedback. If they genuinely like it, we move forward with the collaboration."
The approach serves more than one purpose. It ensures creators speak from genuine experience while giving the company valuable consumer feedback that can shape future product improvements. For Nair, authentic advocacy cannot be built through contracts alone—it starts with partnering with creators who genuinely believe in the product.
But, if compliance remains a challenge despite clear guidelines, what needs to change across the ecosystem?
Kulkarni sees technology becoming an active participant in solving the problem. Much like platforms already identify copyrighted music or inappropriate content, disclosure tools could become far more intuitive, making omissions harder to miss before a post goes live. But technology alone won't solve what remains, at its core, a process issue. Agencies and brands, he says, must stop treating compliance as a last-minute check and instead make it part of campaign planning from the outset. Mandatory compliance clauses in creator contracts, standard disclosure templates, pre-publication reviews and final approval processes should become standard operating procedures rather than optional safeguards.
The conversations reveal a common thread. ASCI believes awareness is no longer the biggest hurdle, while agencies point to execution and fragmented accountability. Brands, meanwhile, stress governance and consumer trust. Together, they suggest that compliance isn't failing at a single point—it's slipping through an ecosystem that has grown faster than the processes designed to support it.
As campaigns become larger and creator networks more diverse, the challenge is only becoming more complex. Better platform tools, standardised contracts and stronger compliance checks can help reduce lapses. But as industry experts agree, technology and policy can support compliance—they cannot replace a culture of accountability.
As Kapoor cautions, the industry is witnessing a "growing normalisation of violate-now-comply-later practices." Left unchecked, that risks reducing compliance to a corrective measure instead of making it an integral part of campaign planning.
Influencer marketing has undoubtedly matured, and it will grow more. The industry's next challenge is clear—compliance can no longer remain a last-mile check. The real test will be whether brands, agencies, creators and platforms can build transparency into the way campaigns are planned and executed. Because in the end, the future of influencer marketing won't be defined by how fast it grows but by how much trust it is able to retain.
