Miscellaneous

Various images and a video were posted to the influencer’s Instagram story promoting the advertisers’ jewellery collection. Two of the images were close-ups of the products on offer while the video depicted the influencer showing her wearing the jewellery and speaking about it.

Onscreen text across the images and the video stated, “@dylanoaksofficial ad” and included a link to purchase the jewellery stating, “Shop offer now 🔗”. The text in one of the images was in small, white font on a white background and in the other images and video the text was in small font located at either the top of the frame or the bottom.

The complainant considered the advertising to be misleading as they said the disclosures did not include a hashtag and were therefore marked incorrectly. They also said that the disclosure wording was hard to read and that it was not immediately clear that the story posts were advertising as it was written in small text. The complainant said that in one case, the disclosure text was written in white font on a white background. They considered this to be misleading.

Advertisers’ Response:

The advertiser did not provide a response to the complaint.

Influencer’s Response:

The influencer’s agent responded on their behalf and said that they had reviewed the complaint and had spoken to the influencer to ensure this mistake did not happen again. They said that they had reminded the influencer of the advertising guidelines and the importance of adhering to them.

Complaint Upheld:
The Independent Complaints Council considered the detail of the complaint and the influencers’ response. They expressed concern at the advertisers’ failure to respond to the complaint and reminded them that there is an onus on advertisers to ensure that their advertising is in conformity with the ASA Code.

The Council 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 and that this disclosure should be the first word in any text block.

The Council noted that the advertising content in this case had not been identified correctly as advertising material as an incorrect disclosure had been used and, in one image, the colour of the font used meant that the disclosure was partially obscured by the background colour. They concluded, therefore, that it was not clear that the stories featured commercial content and that the advertising breached the Code at sections 3.10, 3.31, 3.32, 4.01 and 4.04.

Action Required:
The advertisement must not reappear in its current form. The Council reminded all parties of the requirements of the guidance in disclosing commercial content.