Advertisment
Five posts appeared on the influencers’ Instagram story that featured a variety of the advertisers’ products.
All posts depicted and or described a product alongside a link to buy it via the advertisers’ website.
The advertisers’ Instagram handle was tagged, and the influencers’ affiliate code was included with a prompt to use it in each post.
In different locations of each story the text “baad” or “ba.ad” was included.
Complaint
Three complaints were received against the advertising on the basis that the use of the text “baad” or “ba.ad” were not clearly identifiable as a disclosure that the posts were advertising material. One complainant also considered the positioning of the advertisers’ Instagram handle on one of the posts to be obscured by the influencer’s handle, leaving only the text “baad” visible.
Response
Advertisers’ Response:
The advertisers stated that they were satisfied that the influencer had followed relevant guidance in their posts, stating that she had used a text size, and font colour that was bold and stood out from the original media background to clearly highlight contents were advertisements.
They stated that the text “ba ad” clearly indicated to viewers that she was a Brand Ambassador and that these posts were advertisements.
The advertisers also advised that Brand Ambassadors often produced organic pieces of content outside of their contractual obligations and that therefore the influencer would not have included or clearly shown in bold text that it was an ad if it was not paid.
Influencers’ Response:
The Influencer’s agency while advising that they were the influencer’s Talent Manager only, stated that from an agency perspective, all content goes through brand approval prior to posting. They said that the videos had been marked as AD in line with standard disclosure practices.
The influencer was invited to comment directly on the complaints but did not provide a response.
Conclusion
Complaints Upheld.
The Independent Complaints Council considered the detail of the complaint and the advertisers’ response. They expressed concern at the Influencer’s failure to respond to the complaint. They reminded them that there is an onus on them to ensure that their marketing communications are in conformity with the 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 label or #Gifted and that this disclosure should be the first word in any text block. The Council noted that in addition to a required primary label, there were several secondary advertisement labels that could be used following the primary label to clearly denote the influencers relationship with the brand as a brand ambassador.
The Council noted that as the influencer had an existing relationship with a brand as a brand ambassador, any content that contained or referenced the brand, should have been tagged appropriately as advertising material as per the joint guidance published by the Advertising Standards Authority and the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) on disclosing advertising content.
In this case, the Council considered that the advertising had not been identified correctly and the Council also considered that the influencers’ use of the text “ba ad” was not in conformity with the guidelines for influencer advertising and marketing as it did not include a hashtag (#) and did not include a primary or platform provided label before it and the disclosure was not the first word in any text block.
In light of the above, the Independent Complaints Council considered that the advertising had the potential to mislead and was therefore in breach of the Code at sections 3.31, 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.
