Former Love Island contestant and influencer Olivia Buckland has been rapped for a second time by the Advertising Standards Authority after a complaint that an Instagram post was not obviously identifiable as a marketing communication.
The 12 February post showed Buckland holding a bottle of Cocoa Brown fake tan and had the caption "The V-Day prep is well underway and I’m topping up my tan with my fave @cocoabrowntan by @marissacarter 1 HOUR TAN MOUSSE… more".
Once the caption was clicked on, additional text stated "Original – it gives me such a natural glow with no streaks and is the perfect accessory for date night with bae [heart eye emoji] Get yours now @superdrug #TeamCB #CocoaBrownTan #ValentinesDay #BrandAmbassador".
An ASA spokesman told Campaign that Buckland had already been told to not to make such an oversight again in October 2018 when it ruled against a video post on her Instagram page for promoting Warpaint Cosmetics without indicating a commercial relationship.
Buckland, who has since added "#ad" to the Cocoa Brown post, had argued to the ASA that she had covered herself by using the phrase "#BrandAmbassador" in the post as well as in her bio.
The ASA disagreed, stating that labels included in a bio are "insufficiently prominent to ensure that individual posts were each obviously identifiable as ads". It also concluded that the phrase "brand ambassador" was unlikely to convey that Cocoa Brown had both paid for and had a level of control over the content of the post.
Therefore, it said, the post must be withdrawn as there was nothing in its content as it would have appeared in a user’s feed that made it clear to those viewing it that it was an ad.
Last week the ASA made a similar ruling against former Ex On The Beach contestant Jemma Lucy over an Instagram post, promoting Skinny Coffee, that was not easily identifiable as an ad. The post appears to have since been deleted.
The two cases represent the first Instagram posts to be banned for not using #ad since it emerged the ASA had sent out warnings last year to between 200 and 300 influencers for breaking paid partnership rules. The ASA spokesman said it had not had contact with Lucy before last week's ruling.
The ASA also provided this summer’s Love Island contestants with advice and information on why and how to make their social media followers aware when posts are ads.
This year’s batch of contestants were being followed by "huge numbers" of fake Instagram accounts, thus grossly inflating their perceived social media popularity, an investigation revealed in June.
.jpg)
.png)