The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), the ad industry’s self-regulatory body, has issued guidelines for crypto publicity. Its advice features what should have been obvious to our advertising agencies all along, though some clients may have grimaced. With norms set down in writing, the reluctance of crypto advertisers will lose relevance. So even if these are late, they matter. All advertisements for virtual digital assets must say that crypto products and non-fungible tokens are unregulated and highly risky; they must also make it clear that “there may be no regulatory recourse for any loss from such transactions". These alerts need to be on prominent display.
In the crypto ad blitz that we saw on TV screens in pandemic times, with one commercial after another highlighting the big gains up for grabs, it’s not as if no cautions were issued. Most were signed off by a garbled high-speed voice that seemed to have the familiar words “subject to market risks" in there, but this seemed more like a sound mnemonic for mutual fund TV or radio commercials. Crypto tokens are in an entirely more risky bracket and need earnest risk enunciation. And print may be the ideal medium for this.
