Advertisment
The advertising on the Influencer’s Instagram account featured her showcasing leisurewear clothing for the Human Collective brand. The items advertised contained the caption “Added to HC S/S 24” and were as follows:
“The oversized Crew Mystery Black” sweatshirt.
“Lavendar Bike Shorts” alongside a reference to the fact that:
“There’s currently 20% – now €28.80”
The text at the bottom of the screen read:
“Wearehumancollective.com”
Complaint
The complainant said the items depicted had not contained the label #Ad and they considered the advertising to be misleading as the influencer had not indicated their relationship with the brand.
Response
Advertisers:
The advertisers said they had an on-going contractual agreement with the influencer and the advertising content posted had been influenced by them. As part of their agreement with the influencer, they said that the influencer was obliged to post content at times defined by them.
The advertisers said that having discussed the matter with the influencer, they were satisfied that a genuine oversight had occurred on this occasion. Going forward they said all collaborative posts with them would be marked as “Paid Partnership”. They considered this would prevent similar errors from arising in the future.
Influencer:
The influencer said her partnership with the advertisers was a business collaboration. Everything posted by her on her social media account in relation to her collection with them was marked as a ‘paid partnership’. They said it looked like a potential oversight had occurred on their part in this case, or else they hadn’t at the time marked the content as being a ‘paid partnership’. They offered their assurance that similar would not happen again, as they were always clear in relation to identifying advertising material.
Conclusion
Complaint Upheld.
The Complaints Committee considered the detail of the complaint and both the advertisers’ and influencer’s response.
The Committee noted the Code requirements that marketing communications should be clear that they are marketing communications (3.31) and should not misrepresent their true purpose such as being presented as user-generated content (3.32). They also noted the joint guidance published by the Advertising Standards Authority and the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) on disclosing advertising content, which provided that advertising content should have one of three primary labels as a disclosure; #AD, a platform provided tool or #Gifted.
The Committee noted that the advertising content had not included a primary identification label, and therefore had not been correctly identified as advertising material, and as such, likely to mislead consumers about the nature of the content. The Committee concluded that the advertisements were in breach of Sections 3.31, 3.32, 4.1, and 4.4 of the Code.
ACTION REQUIRED:
The advertising should not appear in the same format again.
