Who: The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), We Are TALA Ltd (Tala) and Grace Beverley
Where: United Kingdom
When: 22 May 2024
Law stated as at: 10 June 2024
What happened:
The ASA has concluded that six of Grace Beverley’s social media posts, featuring Tala clothing, breached the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct and Promotional Marketing (CAP Code) rules 2.1 and 2.3 related to marketing communications.
The ASA received 51 complaints about the posts not being clearly labelled as ads. Tala and Grace Beverley responded arguing that Grace Beverley was clearly synonymous with the Tala brand. Furthermore, the language used in the posts was deliberate to show that she was involved in the creation and manufacturing of the products and indicated that she was the founder of Tala. The influencer and Tala further argued that they had jointly posted on one social media platform and Beverley’s bio on another social media stating she was the founder and director of the business. This indicated that there was a commercial relationship between them. Finally, Tala and Beverley referred to the playlist titled “aggressive marketing”, which they claimed was created specifically to ensure that posts were identifiable as ads. Tala tried to claim that they purposely did not include an ad disclaimer, as they believed this would be confusing for consumers, as they may think that Beverley was an “arm’s length” influencer with no commercial interest in the business, instead of the owner of Tala.
The ASA decided to uphold the complaints. It concluded that all six ads were not obviously identifiable as marketing communications and, therefore, breached the CAP Code, which makes it clear that all adverts should be obviously identifiable as such and the commercial intent should be made clear if it is not obvious from the context.
In two social media posts, there were some indicators that Beverley had a commercial interest in the Tala products by the language she used when speaking about how proud she was of the pieces. However, the ASA concluded that as the ads were several minutes long and these references were often made part-way through the advert, this was not sufficient to ensure the posts were identifiable as ads. Moreover, the ASA held that co-publishing the post with the brand was not enough to identify the post as an ad, as some users would not be aware of what co-publishing was or may not have known that the ‘wearetala’ handle on social media referred to a brand.
Some of the social media posts were on Beverley’s personal account and despite her bio stating she is the founder of Tala, the ASA held that most users would not have known that she had a commercial relationship with the brand, especially those who were directed to the page via the function suggesting content that might be of interest to a particular user. Furthermore, the first-person plural language that Beverley used and tagging the Tala social media account were not sufficient to make the commercial intent clear. Additionally, it was not obvious to consumers what the “aggressive marketing” playlist meant and it could be interpreted in different ways, such as its link to music. Therefore, the ASA held that all six posts were not clear upfront that they were ads and were not clearly identifiable as marketing communications.
Why this matters:
The ASA are cracking down on influencer marketing and an easily visible #ad makes all the difference. Brand owners and influencers need to disclose their personal connection to a brand or business when posting on their own social media channels. It is unlikely that disclosures in a bio, in the middle of video content or text, and vague hints to customers about your connection to the business will be sufficient to ensure posts are obviously identifiable as ads. Parties need to at all times ensure that commercial intent is made clear.
