Love Island influencers are shamed by ASA for not sticking to social media rules

Last week, Love Island contestants were named and shamed by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for repeatedly breaking advertising rules, despite receiving warnings.

The list of repeat offenders was published as part of the ASA’s policy on repeated rule breaking, and includes former contestants Belle Hassan and the Gale twins, Eve and Jess.

To coincide with the rule-breaking making the headlines once again, Sam O’Brien, Chief Marketing Officer at performance marketing platform Affise, has compiled a list of the do’s and don’ts regarding the laws that influencers need to follow when promoting products and services on their social media platforms in 2022.

Follow rules of the ‘CAP Code’

Influencers need to pay particular attention to the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Promotional Marketing (the CAP Code). The key elements of the code that influencers must follow are sections 2 and 3.

Section 2 details the rules on how paid advertisements on social media must be instantly and easily recognisable as ads. Section 3 details how ads must not be misleading to the public, or promoted from the influencers involved as an organic and honest post that hasn’t been financially incentivised.

The CAP Code is enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the UK’s advertising regulator. The ASA ensures that the ads across the UK media are following the codes. This applies to influencers, who are being monitored by the ASA to ensure that the codes are adhered to. Failure to do so can see influencers being publicly named and shamed for repeat offences, and in some cases, even receiving penalty fines.

Below are the key practices to follow to avoid breaking any of the codes.

Make ads instantly identifiable

Under the CAP Code, ads ‘must be obviously identifiable as such’. Influencers must therefore ensure that all paid-for, non-organic content is immediately identifiable as a paid for ad.

The most effective (and recommended) way to do this is to ensure that the word ‘AD’ ‘#AD’ ‘advert’ or ‘advertisement’ is included at the very beginning of the paid-for post. Consistently failing to do so and disclose ads is what causes the ASA to publicly name influencers who continue to break the rules.

Avoid any misleading posts or captions

Honesty is the best policy, and as such, section 3 of the CAP Code ensures that all influencer ad activity must not be misleading in any way. It is vital that influencers are honest in their advertisements, and do not mislead the consumer to believe that they are a consumer of a product or service, when they are in fact being paid to advertise on behalf of a business. All gifted products, experiences or recommendations must also be clearly disclosed within the advertisement.
It is also vital to not lie about using the product if you have not done so, whilst also ensuring that all communications are true and are not being obviously over exaggerated for promotional purposes.

Top Tips to Avoid Breaking Any Codes
There are some grey areas when it comes to unethical influencer practices which the ASA do not consider go far enough to require legal actions, but should still be avoided. Rules to stick to when ensuring ads follow the industry regulations include:

Not simply tagging a business in a grid post or piece of content – ensure that the ad is instantly recognisable as a paid advertisement, and that the brand that is paying for the ad is clearly named and identifiable. This also applies to gifted content, PR invites and complimentary services
Avoiding the inclusion of any discount or affiliate codes within content without full disclosure
Avoiding the use of ambiguous language that could mislead the consumer and lead them to believe that you are simply a consumer of a product or service – clearly label the post as a paid promotion
Avoiding the use of unclear hashtags, the ASA recommend simply using ‘AD’ at the beginning of a post