The Influencer’s Guide to making Ads clear from ASA
The Advertising Standards Authority is continuing to work closely with influencers and help keep them out of trouble when it comes to adverts and sponsorship posted across social media.
Over the last few years posts from Louise Thompson, Millie Macintosh, and Marnie Simpson have been subject to ASA action. Some have even been pulled up twice for falling foul of the guidelines.
When we met with the regulator a few months ago they discussed meeting with creators and influencers to help understand the issues and challenges that they faced and the guide is a result of some of those discussion.
The Influencer’s Guide has been developed in collaboration with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to help keep influencers and creators on the right side of the regulator.
So what is inside?
The Influencer’s Guide is an online resource that aims to help all parties involved in influencer marketing to follow the rules. It includes:
What the rules are
What the ASA considers to be an ad
How to make clear ads are ads
What the CMA’s requirements are
What happens if someone makes a complaint about a post to the ASA
Download your copy of the guide.
The Influencer’s Guide also includes a flowchart to help users quickly work out whether a post needs to make clear that it’s an ad.
This is all designed to make it clear for creators and influencers what needs to be labelled they say:
When a brand rewards an influencer with a payment, free gift, or other perk, any resulting posts become subject to consumer protection law. When a brand also has control over the content, they become subject to the UK Advertising Code as well.Consumers must always be aware when they are being advertised to, and both brands and influencers have a responsibility to ensure the content makes that reality clear upfront. Failure to disclose a commercial relationship leaves both parties at risk of action from the ASA.
If you are a creator or an influencer and don’t want to get on the wrong side of the ASA then download this guide and make sure you know how and when to flag your commercial posts. The ASA also have some free tools you can use to check creative on the website.
You can also catch up on our chat with the ASA and find out how the regulations could affect your marketing.