ASCI is not the enemy. ASCI is the reason a brand is willing to send a young creator a payment and trust that the work will not become a regulatory headache. The creators who understand this work more, not less.
The Advertising Standards Council of India publishes a Code for Self-Regulation that applies to every piece of paid creator content shown to an Indian audience. The relevant document for creators is the ASCI Guidelines for Influencer Advertising in Digital Media, first published in 2021 and tightened twice since. The code is short. The mistakes that get flagged are smaller still. What follows is the working version we hand to every creator before their first paid post.
What ASCI actually requires plainly
If a creator has received any kind of consideration — money, a free product, a discount, a trip, a service, an experience — and the content references that brand, the content must carry a disclosure. The disclosure must be upfront. It must be in a label the average viewer can recognise without effort. And it must be in the same language as the content itself.
The exact words the code permits include: Advertisement, Ad, Sponsored, Promotion, Partnership, Collaboration, Free Gift, Paid Promotion. Inside AURA we use "Ad" or "Sponsored" by default, in English, on the first overlay or in the first line of the caption.
The disclosure is not a hashtag at the bottom of a caption. The code is explicit on this. If the disclosure is the eighth thing a viewer scrolls past, it does not count.
The five places creators fail
- 01Reels and Shorts that bury the disclosure in a sticker the viewer must tap to read. The label must be visible without interaction.
- 02Stories that show the product in the first frame and reveal the partnership only on frame three. The disclosure must be in the first frame the brand is identifiable.
- 03Carousels where slide one is the hook and slide six is the disclosure. The first slide and the caption must both carry the label.
- 04Voice-overs that name the brand on second sixteen of a thirty-second clip without an on-screen label. Audio alone is not sufficient. The viewer who watches with sound off — and many do — is owed the same disclosure.
- 05Collaborations posted from the brand's handle without the creator's caption mirroring the disclosure. Both ends of the post are responsible.
Free products are still consideration
This is the most-missed clause in the code. If a brand sends a creator a product worth more than a token amount and the creator posts about it, the post is a paid post under ASCI. There does not need to be a contract. There does not need to be money. The product is the consideration.
The threshold is not numerically defined in the code, which is sometimes read as a loophole. It is not a loophole. The studio's working rule is: if the product would not have been sent to the creator without the expectation of content, the post is paid. Disclose it.
“The disclosure is the cheapest, fastest, simplest part of the work. Creators who skip it pay the highest price.”
Category overlays — the regulators above ASCI
Three sectoral regulators sit above ASCI for creators working in their categories. None of them replace ASCI. All of them add additional rules that compound on top of the disclosure.
SEBI · for finance creators
If the work touches stocks, mutual funds, IPOs, derivatives, or any investment product, SEBI's circulars on registered investment advisers and research analysts apply. A creator who is not a SEBI-registered RIA or RA cannot give specific buy-or-sell calls, cannot promise returns, and cannot present sponsored placements as personal portfolio decisions. The disclosure on this work has to name the registration status and the absence of investment-advice intent.
IRDAI · for insurance creators
Any creator producing content for life, health, motor, or general insurance products must follow the IRDAI advertising regulations. Specific premium claims, disease-cover specifics, and "guaranteed" language are tightly controlled. Most creator briefs in this category go through the brand's compliance team before shoot — and should.
FSSAI · for food creators
Health-and-nutrition claims on food and beverage content are policed by FSSAI. "Sugar-free," "no preservatives," "natural," "immunity-boosting" — every one of those phrases has a specific definition in FSSAI's labelling rules. A creator who repeats the brand's marketing language without checking it against the label is the one who will receive the regulator's letter, not the brand.
What the studio does on every campaign
- We draft the disclosure in the brief itself, not after shoot. The exact word, the exact placement, the exact frame.
- We screen-record the post before publish to confirm the disclosure is visible on the first frame and in the caption.
- We log the brief, the consideration, and the disclosure for every creator and every campaign — kept for 24 months, the standard ASCI retention window.
- We escalate any sectoral category — SEBI, IRDAI, FSSAI — to the brand's compliance counsel before shoot, never after.
The honest summary
ASCI compliance is not heavy. It takes ninety seconds per post and a small piece of working memory you build into the shoot day. The disclosure is the cheapest, fastest, simplest part of the work. Creators who skip it pay the highest price — a brand that will not work with them again, a regulator letter that follows them through every future deal, an Instagram account that quietly loses reach because the platform's own algorithms penalise undisclosed paid content.
Do the disclosure. Then make the work as good as you can.
Reading this as a creator?
The studio reads in 90-day cycles.
First intake is open.