Advertisment
The advertisement appeared as stories on the influencer’s Instagram account and promoted their own fitness programme, ‘The Self Improvement Project’.
The first story showed the influencer performing exercises which were part of ‘The Self Improvement Project’ plan. The captions stated, “recording some of the home exercises for @the_selfimprovement_project”, as well as “I love a lateral band walk. Sit into a half squat. Make sure to lead with your knees so they don’t collapse in.”
The second story featured a snippet from a video podcast the influencer made in which she spoke about the upcoming launch of ‘The Self Improvement Project’. The influencer linked the full podcast in the story and wrote, “if you’re thinking of signing up to @the_selfimprovement_project next week (eeeek), then it would be good to listen to this to see if we would be a good fit for you 😊”.
Complaint
The complainant considered the advertising to be misleading as they said that neither of the two stories featured a label disclosing that they were advertisements, and that the influencer’s own brand was being promoted.
Response
The influencer’s agency responded on their behalf and said that they sincerely apologised for this oversight.
They said that the influencer fully understood the importance of transparency and the need to declare content as an advertisement, particularly when promoting their own brand. The agency said that unfortunately in this instance, the #AD Own Brand disclosure was mistakenly omitted from the stories.
They said that the influencer was committed to adhering strictly to all ASA guidelines moving forward and said that they had already taken steps to ensure that all future content related to their business would be clearly and correctly labelled as #AD Own Brand.
The agency said that they appreciated the Executive’s understanding and were grateful for the Executive’s guidance in helping them maintain the highest standards of compliance.
Conclusion
Complaint Upheld.
The Complaints Committee considered the detail of the complaint and the advertisers’ response. The Committee noted the steps already taken by the influencer to ensure compliance for similar advertising in future.
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. They also noted that a secondary label could be used in addition to (and following) the primary label such as #OwnBrand in this case.
The Committee noted that the advertising content in this case had not been identified correctly as advertising material. They concluded, therefore, that the lack of disclosure resulted in the advertising being likely to mislead consumers about the nature of the content and considered it to be in breach of Sections 3.31, 3.32, 4.1, and 4.4 of the Code”.
