 Well, ladies and gentlemen, it is now time for our next session for the day, which is going to be a panel discussion titled Disclosure Dictat. Our panelists will be discussing the impact of the ASCII guidelines have on digital creators and brands that rely on them for their advertising needs. Well, join me in welcoming our panelists. First up, Manisha Kapoor, Secretary General, the Advertising Standard Council of India. We've got Lakshmi Balasubramanian, CEO and Co-Founder, Green Room, Sagar Push, CEO and Co-Founder, Clank Connect, Viraj Sate, Shate, the Co-Founder and CEO of Monk Entertainment, Shaheer Munir, Founder and Director, Divo. We've got Vikram Kari, Senior Director, Product Head, Inka and finally the session chair for this panel discussion, Nazia Rehman, Editor, Exchange for Media. But with this, I'd like to humbly welcome all our panelists on the screen. Great smiles, great energy from all of you kudos. Thank you for joining us on this virtual platform today. And I'm going to be passing it on to our moderator today, Nazia, to take it forward with the her panel. How are you doing, Nazia? Great. Over to you, Nazia. Take. Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us on a Friday afternoon. Manisha and Brad, you could make it. You were supposed to be going down for some meeting. You said you might be on role. Yeah, I managed to postpone that, so I'm happy to do that. Thank you. Thank you so much. So Bhavna has already introduced each one of you. And I think we should start with the panel discussion. It's a very interesting topic. And I think we have to start with Manisha, because she is the one who has given us this topic. This dig that has come from her. And I don't know how many of you have read our report, which has just released an hour ago about the numbers, you know, that in India alone, I think this industry is going to have 900 crore to be spent on influencer marketing in the coming year. So this is going to be an annual thing now. We are going to do this report annually. If you've not read it, you must go to Euphorum website and read it right away. So I mean, before I start, you know, I'm not an expert like all you guys, but all I know is that there was a time when we were kids and in a classroom, a teacher would ask what do you aspire to be when you grow up? I mean, 90 percent students would say they would want to be a doctor. Now when I have kids and I interact with a lot of little kids, they all want to be an influencer. You know, right away, my son who sits in the half wants to have his own channel. He's been after me that channel. He wants to be an influencer. And some of his friends have already launched their channels. They're already on YouTube making videos and all. So perhaps because of kids and adults like these, Manisha had to come out with a long list of guidelines on, you know, how should influencers and brands conduct themselves when using this medium for marketing. So Manisha, we will first start with you. What I would want to understand is how are you ensuring that these guidelines are followed because, you know, giving guidelines and you've made very interesting guidelines, but how many people are actually following it? And if they're not following it, what all are you doing? Yeah, thanks, Nazia. And, you know, much as you make me sound very dictatorial, I hope I'm not that, but I think, you know, for us at ASCII, it's always a balance of, you know, making sure we don't stifle creativity, but we also want to make sure that, you know, things are fair for consumers and all of us as consumers want to be honestly told things as well. So I think I'll just share a few numbers. You know, it's been about three months since we kind of got the guidelines out. We started our monitoring service sometime in July. And so far we've received about 300 complaints. So that's not a small number. In three months. So it's almost like 100 complaints a month. Yes, yes. So almost three complaints a day, you can kind of take it as that of people pointing out that, you know, a certain influencer has not disclosed the guidelines correctly or, you know, has not carried the disclosure label. So one is that we are very happy that people are pointing this out. So that, you know, it just means that there are people who are aware and there are people who are kind of taking note of the guidelines and, you know, they are kind of pointing out when things are not done. So, you know, an aware citizen base and, you know, certainly digital citizens are, you know, amongst the more aware. So that's that's great news to start off with. And, you know, the news gets better. So in 80% of these cases, you know, when we talk to the influencer or the advertiser, they immediately connected. Okay, so it's only in 20% of the cases where it either takes time or they would like to contest it saying that, no, it's not promotional. And then of course, in some cases, they're able to demonstrate that it is not promotional or, you know, there is no material connect between them and the advertiser. But in 80% of the cases, we do have influencers who immediately kind of admit to their mistake and in a matter of hours, you know, make the corrections on their posts. That's one. Manisha, what would be the profile of these influencers, you know, largely against whom you're getting complaints are the other the bigger ones or or the less known one? It's a mix. It's a mix. So certainly, we do have some of the big names. But it's a fair mix across, you know, so, so that's that's the good thing. If you just see our monitoring mechanism, what we've seen is that if you take about 100 ads, which appear to be promotional, you know, we see that about 25% of them are strictly following the guidelines. Okay, in all respects, that the disclosure label is there, it is put in the way it is meant to be put and all of that. What is not too bad is that there's another 60, 65% who have some kind of disclosure even though it's not technically right. Okay, so there is some attempt at being transparent. I mean, the disclosure may not be the exact words or the labels that we've given it may not be upfront, it may not be all those kind of things. But there is some disclosure as part of the post. And that to me is interesting because it means that people have started recognizing even if they've not embraced the guidelines fully, but there is, I think that clock at the back of their mind saying that, yes, you know, we need to be more transparent. Hopefully over a period of time, you know, these also migrate into the section which, you know, is fully compliant. And then we have about 10 to 12% where there is absolutely no disclosure of any sort. So that's, you know, what we've seen so far, you know, as part of our surveillance. So I would say it's a great start. I'm very encouraged by these numbers, both in terms of the number of complaints coming in, as well as at least seeing a shift of people who are trying to be compliant, even if they're not there fully. But I do appreciate the fact that there is some attempt at, you know, being transparent. Now, if I can have a saga or a virage, I mean, we can start with saga, you know, how has, how have these guidelines affected influence or marketing as a domain? As in like, I have, I have people become a little hesitant, you know, now that there are so many guidelines to be followed, or its business as usual? To be very honest, I don't personally feel that there are a lot of guidelines that need to be followed. It is about time that we had a process, you know, and I look at this from a very, very positive perspective, actually, it just goes on to prove and show that influencer marketing is actually becoming a different advertising currency itself, right? I mean, you would only want to regularize a system which is, which definitely has a potential to, of course, become big. And with anything becoming big, there are chances that it can be misused. And that we could see that, you know, any and every person would come create a content. And some people are vulnerable to follow these people. And, you know, they may get impacted in a negative way. So, so it's a good thing. From our side, what we need to, what we ensure, actually, is that, you know, it is not just the influencers, it is also the brands who need to be informed. Because as much as we like influencer marketing, the brands also want the content to look organic, right? And the moment there is a paid tag, you know, collaboration or a hashtag which carries it, eventually people will start realizing, you know, that it's influencer campaign, which is not really organic, you know, post or something. So some brands are totally fine. A few of them need to be convinced and told that this is a guideline that we need to follow. Influences, so long as they are, you know, getting paid, and I can say that, you know, the things are looking very, very positive. You know, they, of course, recognize the fact that their work is, you know, is getting attention. And they are responsible voices, you know, it cannot be that they just come in and they say something, because it does impact the decision making of people who follow them. So to be honest, at my end, at least, we have some resistance in terms of, you know, bringing them on board, but not as much as, you know, saying a complete no or anything. I mean, that they are most of them are fine. Most of the big influences, by the way, were anywhere following this. I mean, anyone who's a verified handle or something, they had been doing paid collaborations on Instagram for sure. Now on YouTube, and other platforms also we ensure that the guidelines are followed. Viraj, how about you? I mean, this is one question that I would want all of you do. I mean, share your perspective on. So I personally, again, I go what Sagar just mentioned, it doesn't feel like it's an extremely tedious job to add paid partnership tag or a hashtag ad on a post that they're getting paid for. So it doesn't seem like any big inconvenience to influence us specifically. There are certain cases when the brand in fact is a little wary of wanting to put it or not. And then we have to sort of go out and tell them explicitly that, you know what, it's better to get a few lesser likes on your post than to get a notice from asking. So it's just like, so I think that's happening now. And brands are also understanding that's fine, like need to eventually adhere to these guidelines anyway, the best interests of all parties involved. So don't really see an issue anymore. Plus I also don't feel like, at least with regards to something like Instagram Reels or even YouTube videos, the engagement has not fallen at all, honestly, when it comes to a lot of creators using paid partnership tags, which is sort of comes as a surprise. But it's, I mean, it all makes us all happy that thank God that the audience is also receptive in a positive way to these disclosures, right? It's not like if they see their favorite creator using a paid partnership tag, they're skipping that video and all credit to the influencers and the branch of allowing them to be as organic as possible with the content. So I feel like it's, it's just business as per usual. I have not seen a dip in terms of influencer marketing money is being spent. In fact, most of the anything else, I feel like this year and the years to come forward, the spends are only going to increase with the amount of influencers coming into the space, the amount of D2C brands, the amount of startups, the amount of big corporates opening up to influencer marketing is just going to increase. So I mean, good for all of us that act this panel, we're all going to benefit out of that. But yeah, most of the anything else was needed. And it's very welcome. And I don't see it having a negative impact at all. Any of those stakeholders. Lakshmi, can I have you? Sure, absolutely. I mean, I'm going to have to agree with, you know, everyone so far that I think it's a very welcome move. It's something that, you know, like Virajan, Sardar also mentioned, it only goes to show that, you know, this, this form of this kind of influencer marketing, this form of marketing and advertising is only increasing and becoming mainstream, right? So which is, which is something that we all kind of look forward to. And the more larger the spends get for something, the more, you know, it needs to get streamlined, there needs to be rules and processes in place. We do have had trouble. In our case, we've had cases where an odd brand has told us, can we skip it? We've had influencers, some of them celebrities, actually, who have told us that, you know, we do not want to kind of put this up. We've tried our best to keep it, you know, to get them to adhere and put out these. So when influencers kind of tell us, like I mentioned some celebs as well, right, that they will not put this up, it's because they believe that it might reduce their engagement on the particular post. So and if the post gets lower engagement, because it's publicly declared as a, as a branded post, brands might not want to associate with them for the next content piece that they're trying to work out with them. So these have been like slightly minor changes, but I see that a lot of more of these guys, I think if, you know, one of them get a notice, they start taking things a little more seriously. So, you know, when these notices go out to these people that you absolutely must do it, they start taking these things seriously because, you know, people tend to take some of these rules we set in our country for a lot of things a little lightly, right? People think they can get away with stuff. So as an agency, it's our job to ensure that we have the influencer interest and the brand interest in place. We do that, but we've seen a small number of these kind of, you know, cases happen. But that apart, I think it's, it's absolutely not decreased the popularity of influencer marketing or the, you know, the impact it has one bit, right, because it doesn't work because of smaller things like this, it works because it has a larger kind of a, you know, ramification on the kind of content that's delivered on its organic nature or on the diversity of the kind of influencers that we have now. And, you know, the various ways in which we can engage with them, which is getting creative by the day. So, you know, that's what I'd like to add, saying it's a very welcome move and obviously, you know, I mean, even ASCII has been working with influencers, brands and been modifying a lot of these things. If there's need to modify those, that will and should happen over time. That's, that's about it. Shahid, how, how about you? I mean, has it affected your YouTube channel in any way, engagement or in terms of subscribers? Did you see any, did you observe any kind of change after the guidelines came into existence and they were implemented? Yeah, I mean, see, I mean to an extent, I think, you know, audience, you know, is intelligent and you know, even before the ASCII guidelines, you know, audience to an extent do know that these are paid collaborations, just that it was never explicitly disclosed. So, I think that disclosure now is good because not necessarily just from a perspective of the audience knowing that, but also from a perspective that a lot of time, the influencers should also, you know, know that they are responsible for influencing a lot of people's, you know, decision making in terms of, you know, could it be a buying behavior or using some particular service or a product? You know, and there are, you know, multiple brands today, you know, where there are gray areas in terms of, you know, are they legal in India, are they not legal, you know, which could be companies like Betting, binary trading, you know, there are different legal opinions about it. So, that onus on the influencer as well that, you know, you are also responsible for what you claim to be providing for the editor, you know, I think it's important so that, you know, the influencer also takes up the responsibility that I'm not promoting something, you know, which is going to lead into something where my audience, you know, who's, you know, the core reason for me to be an influencer is not getting cheated or getting into some fraudulent equity. So, I think in that way having the guidelines is good for influencer marketing as an industry, getting into, you know, processes and guidelines. And overall in terms of engagement, I mean, we have not seen, you know, I mean, as a, you know, the last six, seven years of being, you know, enterprise content partner with various video platforms and working with these influencers, you know, we have only seen growth, you know, quarter on quarter year on year and, you know, and that, you know, is not stopping. So, as and as as what we had said as well, there are multiple content creators coming on board, you know, every day, every week and, you know, the audiences are also increasing day by day. So, so, so I don't think there's any production in engagement of your ship. And overall, you know, I think the disclosure really helps so that, you know, the audience is also aware and I think that owners and responsibility from the influencer or the agency as well, that they are working with someone, you know, that is, you know, relevant and valid for the audience also to see. Vikram, you, you are part of such a big agency and, you know, the kind of brands you work with and I'm sure you you're aware of the report that has come out. It's, your inputs must have gone into that report. So, what kind of insights you have for us when we talk about the new guidelines and how brands and influencers have reacted to it? So, honestly, I mean the good thing about coming in in the end is that you get to agree with everyone, which I do. I think we are all on the same page that, you know, that it hasn't really, you know, affected much in the sense of getting lower, you know, affecting the popularity of influencer marketing for that matter. Right. Also, the fact that I also agree with what Shire said is that we cannot underestimate the audience. Everybody knew what a paid ad is, especially when it comes to celebs. I think this is especially beneficial. I mean, these guidelines are especially beneficial for people that are specialists. Right. For example, the tech influencer, I would rely on his reviews for a product. And I should know it's my right to know whether it's paid as a consumer. Right. It's my right to know that it's a paid partnership. That's a definitely welcome step great for the industry. Influencers are also taking it positively. I think the only bit of a challenge that we have currently is adoption. Right. It's going to take a while. We are, we, so as Group M, we've always been very big on brands. Right. So, from the beginning, we've been insisting on paid partnership tags, et cetera, for face resistance, obviously, before the ASCII guidelines especially. But now, I think with ASCI backing us, we have that much more, you know, we have that, we have that much more of a, you know, reason to tell them to adhere to this. So, great move, I think. And we are pushing adoption. It's going to be a little tough for those smaller creators, at least because even with these short-format video platforms, et cetera, that we have right now, even rural influencers, a lot of them are not even aware of what ASCII is or what, you know, they are supposed to do certain things with their video. They are just putting out content out there every day. So, the onus is on us. Onus is on all of us. Actually, that is what I want to discuss in the next part. Yeah. Sure, sure. Glad you brought that up. Yeah. Yeah. So, it is on us and we have to kind of educate people and you know, tell them the importance of it. And, of course, we are not, to be honest with you, I am myself not very clear on what the repercussions of not obeying these guidelines are. So, I think it would help if the ASCII also puts out that note. And if there is also some kind of an outreach program that, you know, where they reach out to creators or to educate them, I think that would help. Because we are trying, but we are not the only ones, several players. So, I actually wanted to understand from Manisha that how have you gone out explaining these guidelines? You know, how have you educated the stakeholders on this? And do you still get questions in queries from influencers or creators regarding the guidelines? Yeah. So, I think when we launched the guidelines and even, in fact, before we launched the guidelines, I think we were very clear that this has to be a collaborative effort. And therefore, you know, it was not something that we went about and, you know, just wrote down in a room and decided. So, we had a lot of collaboration with influencers, with talent management agencies, with advertisers, etc. To really understand not just what the guidelines should be, but how should these, you know, guidelines be put out? Because, you know, like all of you are saying that, you know, we have thousands and thousands of new influencers coming into the fold every day. And many of them are really young people who are not traditional marketeers and advertisers, right? I mean, they've not had, in that sense, a formal induction into marketing and advertising, where you would say, okay, someone is kind of teaching them about rules of advertising, etc., right? I mean, these are people who are going with their own intuition of what is right and wrong. And therefore, there is that whole need. So, it was, in fact, on a suggestion that, you know, of this nature that we created ASCII.Social, which became a platform for people to come into, we did a guide to the guidelines because, you know, the guidelines have to be written in a certain technical way, but, you know, a more explanatory kind of thing. I think we are also looking for, you know, the industry to kind of take this message forward. And we are happy to kind of, you know, be on their platforms. You know, we've had calls where a large corporate has called us and got 200, 300 influencers that they work within a room. And, you know, we've kind of tried to explain the guidelines, done a Q&A with them. So, I think we are, in that sense, you know, quite happy to participate where required. You know, we've had people who of their own accord have kind of looked at these guidelines, put up their YouTube videos on it, you know, and how do you understand these guidelines. So, it would be great to my mind for influencers who believe in this cause to help us propagate it, because that creates a level playing field for everyone who wants to be responsible. You know, you don't want to be responsible if you feel that people who are irresponsible can get away with it. So, I think for people who believe in this idea of responsibility, you know, to join hands with ASCII and we are quite happy to kind of, you know, be at any forum that allows us to reach out to more people, including languages, I think that's, you know, in a sense something we've not gotten to yet. But I also think it's early days and, you know, we, but yes, it's this is not something that, you know, even from our point of view is a one-time exercise that we have done and it's over now. I think it's an ongoing process. So, coming to the agency is, you know, how, what kind of internal training are you giving to, you know, your own employees, you know, talent who works with these influencers, you know, how do you explain these guidelines to them? Is there been some training programs, right, or do you just pass the literature to the influencers saying that, you know, these are the new guidelines and you have to follow it. How was it executed? We can start with Vikram this time because his agency is really big. Yeah, so what Manisha was saying is that the guide to the guidelines really helped and we sort of created like a white paper out of it and made simple bullet points for the team, including the larger circulated among the other agency teams as well, you know, as mandate moving forward and yeah, within the campaign management team and the product team, we explained these guidelines. We understood them first and we explained them and ensured that they are always at your base. Now, there is no, you know, sort of giving that a miss either from the celebrity or the and they were pretty simple and straightforward. I mean, were there any points for which you had to go back and seek clarifications? You had any doubts? Not actually. I think they were very simply explained. In fact, I think in a couple of months before the guidelines were officially announced, there was a, you know, an article that I read about these are the possible guidelines that would be launched and those were a little complicated to be understand, but hats off to Manisha and team for simplifying them and making them very simple and just a few hashtags and just a few disclosures upfront. That's that's all good. There is, there was no there was no difficulty executing. Shahir, like you work in South market, you know, you also work with a lot of people who are who have well limited understanding of English, maybe, you know, they have their own language. How did you tackle this? You know, how have you trained your own teams? Yeah, I think, you know, the first objective that we did was that as an organization that we understand the guidelines clearly and and our team and extended team are also aware about it. So I think we did reach out to ASCII to, you know, kind of clarify a few, you know, questions and doubts the team had and once we did that, you know, we kind of did it. What were these doubts? I mean, if you can, I mean, it's typically like, you know, do we need to add, you know, this particular, you know, hashtag in the video, is it D2D done in the edit? Or is it just fine to be added, you know, in the description of the video? You know, what is the procedure for Twitter? It was not mentioned in the document. So, you know, so things like this, right? And I mean, it was very basic and I think, you know, the implementation of it also wasn't complicated. That's what Vikram as well said that, you know, it was just a couple of hashtags and disclosures. So I think the more time consuming part was, you know, since we have an extended network, you know, whom we work with, not just necessarily from the perspective of working with them as an agency and providing them with, you know, brands, but also that we are also, you know, either producer or co-producers of the content, you know, and, you know, and a lot of these talents, you know, we needed to explain to them as well why this is important and, you know, why we need to implement this, right? And I think something which even Lakshmi also mentioned earlier that they were having that worry, or, you know, wouldn't this, you know, make things look very commercial and people would not think this is an organic content, wouldn't engagement reduce? I think, but those were just initial hiccups. I think now, you know, everyone understands and they've seen others also do it and that, you know, that this is the norm, you know, so it's been fine. I think the challenge we probably faced was that they were a couple of, you know, in few, maybe regional brands were not aware about it and, you know, and who basically was trying to say that, you know, put it as it's not a paid promotion. You know, and we told them about the, you know, the potential repercussions should be, which could be there, you know, which can even be public, you know, doing an outcry and, you know, getting trolled and things like that. So, which is unnecessary, you know, you know, tactics being taken and so, having said that, I think the propagation straightforward and I think it's, you know, it wasn't a very complicated task. Lakshmi, how was your experience? I mean, it wasn't like I mentioned that we, we still, like I said, have influencers who worry a little bit about, you know, will it reduce their engagement actually and when I say influencers, these are not, you know, small guys with 10K, 20K followers. These are fairly big influencers, some celebs, like I said. And maybe, you know, one place where we could kind of get help on, I'm not sure if, you know, maybe ASCII could get Instagram to also kind of clarify these queries because they believe that their engagement or their organic reach will drop. Actually, we don't know if that will happen or will not happen. There have been instances, maybe it's gotten reduced. See, it looking commercial and things like that, we can still explain to them after a point, right? You know, a declaration like this is required because of XYZ reasons. But when it comes to quantitative things like your reach will drop and your impressions, views will drop and these are important metrics, right? I mean, they're getting paid for their reach. A large part of the payment that goes to them is for their reach. We don't have clear answers, right? I mean, nobody except in Instagram, Facebook or YouTube has very clear defined answers as to will the reach really drop or not, right? So if you could get some kind of assistance or, you know, knowledge also on whether that's a fact or it's just a myth that's floating around or misconception, which maybe as he could kind of help clear with the platform owners itself, that could really help because that's probably the only hiccup we've ever seen. Brands, obviously, there are brands who wanted to not do it and when we do tell them, you're going to get a note notice and it's legally kind of not okay and all of that. They eventually understand it's a brand, right? They don't want to get into trouble and things like that. So this probably has been the only hiccup if you could call it that and the clarification on this would really be wonderful. And another, you know, otherwise I mean influences kind of really understand why it's required. So long as it does not, you know, make their lives difficult, they're kind of okay with it. One more maybe difficulty was why add both the paid partnership tag as well as a hashtag, right? Because a paid partnership is not compulsory, but when we do add them, maybe can we do away with the hashtag in those cases? So yeah, so I guess these have been the only two points where we've gotten, we wish we could have some assistance. We have reached out to, you know, Manisha's team and she herself has responded a lot of times. In fact, a brand has asked us to help reach out to her so that they can get stuff clarified and we've done that too. So from their end, it's been, you know, we've had a lot of conversations that way through various media and it's really helped us kind of get the guidelines in place and implement it. Manisha, you want to respond right away? Yeah, sure. So I think one is on the reach. I think, you know, I'd be had spoken about this actually, I remember the time when we had launched the guidelines that so we had, you know, as part of our panel, Guy Parker, who is currently the president of the International Council for Advertiser Self-Regulation. And a lot of countries have had these guidelines for a while now. So, you know, so they've had them for 12 months, 18 months, some have even had them for 2-3 years. In fact, the UK had guidelines for YouTubers, I think about 7 years ago. So these guidelines have been, you know, in certain markets for a while and they have noticed actually absolutely no drop in engagement for good content. So I think it is, it goes back to basics where good content will get you the reach and the engagement that, you know, you're seeking. And I think most influencers also recognize that. I mean, I've also started seeing, you know, just anecdotally, much more organic content that they're now in disperse between paid content so that they kind of clean the interest of the audience, you know, not just on commercial messages, but who they are on, you know, also. And I think that just makes the internet a little bit more authentic in terms of its own space. So I think on, you know, I'm not particularly worried on the reach and engagement going down. I think empirical evidence suggests that it should be robust. I think on the other point that you mentioned, Lakshmi on, you know, these tags, etc. See, there are only some platforms that have them and not all platforms have these kind of declarations. So over a period of time, yes, perhaps, you know, we could, you know, work with different platforms, have different tools in place for different platforms. But I think at this point of time, we want to start with a common slate that is irrespective of medium because, you know, we don't want to add a lot of complexity at the beginning and also for consumers to see a uniform way in which the declarations and disclosures are done because, you know, some, you know, channels or some platforms may call it a little less obvious than a paid partnership. So I think at this point of time, we wanted to make sure that the disclosure labels are consistent, irrespective of the medium. But yes, I think it's an evolving field for us as well. And, you know, I mean, six months a year down the line. I'm sure, you know, we'll have these conversations and see where to evolve these guidelines to. Viraj, do you also have some questions? I mean, your brands that you work with or influences you work with, they also have some questions to clarify with ASCII. You know, they also have their doubts. Not so much, you've actually never had an experience spent on a certain brand or any influencer has asked us to write to ASCII with regards to clarifying. And I feel like to quite an extent, the document that has been shared by them is pretty self-explanatory. And like till you're following those certain guidelines, it's not too much of an issue. And again, the thing is that like most of the deals that we do are like always paid deals. There's a very, like we don't work as much with like narrow microinfluences as we do with like the slightly bigger influencers. So I feel like a lot of those questions might also pop up and there's like certain part of the question, for example, right? Because that was again a big point of discussion during the initial ASCII discussion that we use hashtag gifted or the hashtag partner or whatnot. But besides that, I think there's been like utmost clarity. We did, I think, receive one or two what notices when one of our creators you know, did not place the hashtag. And I think it was immediately rectified. We immediately edited the post and got it sorted out. So I feel like quite an extent, these are all very easy to understand and easy to implement. So no issues there per se. Sagar, do you want to add? Have you faced any kind of difficulties? I mean, while implementing them or understanding them, do you have any doubts that you want to clarify with ASCII or I can move to my next question? No, I'll quickly just add absolutely no problem. See, there's always a bit of resistance to any kind of change. To start with, there was a bit of resistance, for example, with my business leads or people who are talking to influencers. But the idea is to understand why a certain change is being done as long as you're able to communicate that message and things become easy. That's where it started. A few influencers did have some problems and they did come on a call. But I think someone pointed out it is not the very essence of doing influencer marketing is to make meaningful and powerful content. If you're making it on the face of it, some kind of association collaboration you might as well do, you may have some amount of reach. But the essence of influencer marketing is never served there. So you have to create meaningful strong content. And if your content is good, irrespective whether it's a paid partnership or not a paid partnership, it will gain the traction that it does. So the guidelines are pretty simple, very straightforward, not much of an asking with respect to the influencers that they have to do. Some education, I mean the entire value chain we have to educate everyone right from the brand to the influencer. So yeah, we are totally good with it. So this is the first set of guidelines that have come for an Indian market. Going forward, I mean, would you want to suggest some additions or subtractions to it? Do you think that certain things should also have been included in these guidelines? So yes, now there are certain especially with influencer marketing and guys like Viraj and Vikram will understand that brands also do a lot of barter kind of stuff where they don't actually pay the influencer but they give something product of a certain value. Now, these are essentially some gray areas. I mean, if I read the guidelines, I think you can use that hashtag. You still have to, you still have to, but a lot of times brands are kind of dealing with they have an in-house marketing team so they're dealing with influencers directly. They may do it, they may not do it. Influencers are also saying, we did say that we have seen a few instances where they were reluctant in putting that thing in their thing that then absolutely there's nothing which is there because I'm not getting paid for that. The big ones anyway do not do barter as such. The ones who are more than maybe 100K, 200K followers, they only do paid collaboration. So there we didn't have a problem. The problem did come with some micro nano influencers who don't maybe 20, 30K range types. And how do we ensure that there's a clear bifurcation in terms of what is a paid, what is a barter? I mean the essence, like I said, is to educate or and make the end consumer powerful and informed about the content that they're seeing. But yes, I think when all of us learn have our experiences, I think these things will also get kind of more structured streamline in terms of what kind of content or what kind of collaboration should be tagged in in which way because a barter cannot be paid. And so that's perhaps slightly a bit of thing. Also with respect to platforms, I think YouTube is not so, because the content is long form, people don't really every time go and read the description. While it does say that you can have either a hashtag put in the description or in the video itself, like in the first five seconds or 10 seconds, if I remember clearly or towards the end, you have to mention that. But I think Insta is much more, clearly there is an option of doing paid partnership. And people, the comment is also clearly seen. Yeah, it's visible. Vis-a-vis YouTube long form content. Which is good for your influencers, right? It is good. But I mean, the idea is to make the end consumer more informed about the content that they're watching. So yes, I think these things will come in. We'll have our learnings. But like I rightly, I have said earlier, I'm totally in with this thing because it gives me further conviction that this entire industry is becoming an advertising currency in itself. And it is not just a part of digital marketing now. It is a different, like you said, sometime back then, and of course is something that we're looking at. So it's a humongous growth that we have seen. Vikram, what more would you want from Manisha? You know, when maybe when she revises her guidelines, she comes with a new set of them or what more value add can these bring to your influencers or to marketing? So honestly, Nazia, I think what I would request Manisha and her team is to be flexible about this. You know, like she said, there was an entire council that went into making these guidelines or forming these guidelines. Similarly, as we move forward, I think it's important to keep testing these for their simplicity, for their, you know, easiness to execute and even sustainability for that matter, plus the fact that, you know, we can keep evolving new or creating new guidelines for other platforms like the short format video platforms or other formats as formats are coming up. So just keep, just keep it flexible and I know they are open to you can define flexible, like what exactly you mean when you say keep it flexible. So what I mean is, see to be honest with you, right now, we haven't even gotten to a stage here yet where the adoption is complete. Right. We are still educating people, so I think it's a little too early to say whether this is working or what is not working or this needs to be changed or that needs to be changed because we still haven't got there. Right. So as we move forward, I think it's it's, it would be great if, you know, we can have an open forum with the ASCII to keep sharing thoughts and sharing the feedback that we get from creators and from clients alike. You know, and yeah, that's about, that's about my Lakshmi, what would you want to suggest to Manisha? I just mentioned last time when I was talking also, yeah, so if sometimes if you can avoid these double paid partnership plus a hashtag kind of rule which makes it a little more I mean, the more processes, the more compliance have become. But I mean, fair enough, like she mentioned, it's always good to have a standard terminology across the platform. So these are initial days as well. So that was probably one which I'm sure they'll also work towards kind of streamlining as, you know, we move on in this whole journey. Maybe, I mean, if there is, I mean, she also mentioned that they did a large session with about 150 odd influences. I mean, just to organize this itself must have been a real task and good host to that corporate for having done that. But if there are more such sessions slash, you know, interactive pieces that ASCII can arrange with those direct stakeholders which in this case influences a lot of times and brands in some cases to educate them about, you know, like I said, bust the myths and give quantitative examples or you know, what are all of, all of those things like maybe even have an Instagram page to kind of explain a lot of these things keep making content probably so that, you know, it becomes mainstream and all of these guys really know what it is and why it's important and understand and just disseminate this as much as possible, which I'm sure they're doing, but yeah, I guess that's it. And like Vikram said, I agree it's a little too soon to already jump to conclusions to say this is working and that's not working. It's an evolving process and from what I've seen, they've been no, I mean, when you see the guidelines, of course it is too early, it's just been three months, but when you see the guidelines, if you, if you feel that, you know, they could have, they could have included this aspect also, you know, to these guidelines or maybe this one particular aspect should not be maybe like, like Sagar said, that free gift thing, he doesn't like, a lot of influences do not want that kind of a hashtag. So if you, if there are some changes that you would want to suggest based on the current guideline, which you have, that was the only one I had, which is the paid partnership plus the hashtag thing. Apart from that, I didn't really have too much because like I said, you know, we will learn more as we progress. So right now, that's pretty much it. I mean, I'm okay with even freebie and honestly, a hashtag kind of gets hidden fairly well. I mean, it's there, but it's not there. So it's not, it's so much in your face as, you know, probably a paid partnership on Instagram is. So honestly, the ASCII guidelines are a little more subtler if you ask me, than even those are. So I'm good, you know, currently, and as we go, I'm sure we learn and so long as there's adaptability within that, which I'm sure there will be, there should, it should be smooth. So we are running out of time. Shaheer, you have one minute to add whatever your questions are and then I have to give the final word to Ganesha. Yeah, I mean, I think definitely we are surely going in the right direction. It's a welcome move, what's been done, you know, and as long as I think if the industry is also moving in the same direction and everyone's adopting it, I think we'll all work to adapt and improve the industry standards. So we'll only look at how to see how this will help the entire ecosystem. Viraj. I honestly don't have anything, any complaints from Anisha and I feel like you all have done a lot of comprehensive research on setting these guidelines. So this is your time to sit back and watch the execution of the same. If you need anything from Aaron, please let us know if you need more workshops to be organized, more adoption to happen, more people to be acquainted, influences to be acquainted, we're happy to organize that for asking. So Manisha, we are left with the exact one minute, but I mean, you can take a little long as long as you want to answer this question. So when you were giving these guidelines, you also said that this was just the first step, you know, we are going to come out with more. So what is that more if you can tell us and if you can just give your comments or your feedback on the concerns that some of them have raised? Yeah, so I think when we said, you know, there'll be more, I don't think we mean more guidelines, certainly not at this stage. I think it is more about talking of the evolution of these guidelines. In that sense, it's just a beginning. And I think as everyone has pointed out, I think it's a learning phase for everyone, including Aski. And, you know, so far we've been encouraged by the feedback, which is why we also made this a very collaborative exercise. You know, there are just so many different kinds of stakeholders in this. And that will be our approach going forward. So I do want all of you to write back to us, you know, with any comments that you have any feedback, any suggestions on new hashtags we need to introduce or any other kind of things that you see, you know, and help us and Virajan, honestly, everyone else, I mean, please invite us for any forum that you're doing with, you know, influencers. We would love for this message to get amplified. There are, you know, in the beginning, I know I did so many of these seminars and webinars. And, you know, honestly, initially, the conversation was, you know, people were really scared that this is a real big imposition. And I think as people have started to do what they realize, it's not such a big deal, right? I mean, all you're doing is adding, you know, a small disclosure label. So it's not that burdensome. But there are, I'm sure, a lot of, you know, there is still confusion. There will still be some, you know, interpretation, which are maybe not accurate, you know, that are going around. And we'll be very happy to, you know, come to any forum you invite us to, to speak with influencers directly, anything that you think will help dissemination of these guidelines. I think particularly, as I've been saying, I think we've not done yet, you know, an adequate job of reaching out to language, you know, and regional influencers and how do we do that? How do we amplify our message? So if there are ways in which you can reach out to them, please make us a part of those platforms. And we'd be happy to be there. And I think just going forward, our approach is collaborative. We are a self-regulatory body, which means that we together, everyone in this room and in this group, are together putting a certain sort of guidelines that we are voluntarily subscribing to, saying that this is the responsible thing to do. And I think it is with that spirit of collaboration and self-regulation that we wish to also proceed. So absolutely, this is, you know, something that we are, that we all co-own and, you know, happy to be a part of any kind of education, workshops, seminars, anything that you want to call us for, please call us. Thank you so much. Let me just take another second. I also want to thank everyone actually. And I think, you know, the education that you have done also on behalf of ASCII, you know, everyone sitting here, the workshops, forums, guidelines, documents that you have created for your internal teams, for the influencers, is also absolutely great. I mean, it's fabulous. It's a great amplification of our work. It's a great dissemination of our work. And you know, everyone is doing a great service to self-regulation. You know, I really thank everyone who's done that and who plans to do that. It's very, very important. So thank you for doing that. Thank you, Manisha. I see that the most of the panelists for the next minute have already joined. So we should not take much of their time. Thank you, each one of you, for joining us on Friday afternoon again. And Bhavna is already back. So maybe we'll meet maybe in another six months' time when these guidelines are there for at least nine, eight months. And you guys can give me more definite answers about, you know, what kind of changes we should look at going forward. Thank you, Manisha. Thank you, Vikram. Thank you, Sangir, Lakshmi. All of you, thanks a lot, Sangir. Thank you very much. Thanks for joining us. Thank you.