Who: Prettylittlething.com Ltd (PLT) and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)
Where: United Kingdom
When: 8 January 2020 and 5 February 2020
Law stated as at: 10 February 2020
What happened:
Online retailer PLT has had two complaints upheld by the ASA in under two months. Each ruling has involved a topical issue: the first, involving PLT’s brand ambassador Molly Mae Hague from Love Island fame, deals with influencers labelling posts clearly; and the second covers gender stereotyping.
Molly Mae Hague’s Instagram post
The first ruling involved a contestant from last year’s Love Island, which the ASA famously coupled up with last year to release a cheat sheet (see here). Practising the cheat sheet, the ASA upheld a complaint about an Instagram post that some may argue typically falls outside of the ASA’s remit.
Molly Mae is a brand ambassador for PLT. Back in September 2019, she posted an image of herself wearing an outfit from PLT onto her Instagram page and tagged PLT in the post. This led to one complainant challenging whether the post was obviously identifiable as a marketing communication.
PLT and Molly Mae’s agent argued that the post was “organic” and not required under Molly Mae’s contract with PLT (which was not provided to the ASA). Molly Mae had simply made the post because she liked the brand/outfit and a range of Instagram posts showing Molly Mae wearing PLT’s clothing prior to becoming an ambassador of the brand was provided as evidence. This argument (that the post was not contractually required) would usually mean that the post falls outside of the ASA’s remit, as this requires there to be an element of both payment and editorial control.
However, on this occasion, the ASA upheld the complaint on the basis that it considered PLT to have control over the post, which was sufficient to fall within the remit of the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct & Promotional Marketing (CAP Code). The following reasons were provided: there is a financial relationship between Molly Mae and PLT; and Molly Mae was pictured wearing PLT and had tagged PLT in the post. The ASA acknowledged that Molly Mae described herself as a PLT brand ambassador in her Instagram biography but deemed this insufficient as the functionality of Instagram would mean many users would not see the biography.
As such, both Molly Mae and PLT were reminded that the post should have included #ad.
Interestingly, as flagged in the cheat sheet, the ASA advised that posts containing a gift must be labelled as ads; at the time, this wording was taken. We would usually expect this to fall within the remit of the CMA as there is payment but not editorial control in respect of this specific post.
YouTube pre-roll ad
A pre-roll YouTube ad for PLT was seen in October 2019. The ASA described the ad as follows: “The ad opened with a woman wearing black vinyl, high waisted chaps-style knickers and a cut-out orange bra, dragging a neon bar and looking over her shoulder. The ad proceeded to show women in seductive poses, wearing various lingerie style clothing and holding the neon bars“. One complainant believed the ad was overly sexualised and objectified women and therefore challenged whether the ad was offensive and irresponsible.
PLT responded: “…the ad highlighted how they supported and promoted diversity through bold and distinctive fashion of all shapes and sizes which focused on different trends“; “they worked hard to promote a positive and healthy body image that was inclusive and empowered women“; and the ad was inspired by rave style clothing (with a mood board for the ad to support this).
The ASA upheld the complaint by providing a summary of the ad and concluding that the cumulative effect of the scenes meant that the products were presented in an overly sexualised way. PLT has been warned to not use advertising that may cause serious offence by objectifying women.
Why this matters:
Molly Mae Hague’s Instagram post
The ruling was particularly interesting because it provides further insight into how the ASA applies “control”. Typically, from previous guidance, it was expected that this would only relate to where a brand had stipulated certain actions from an influencer (including but not limited to messaging of a post, including a product and/or the time and dates that a post is made public). This ruling shows that the ASA applies “control” much more broadly than this and brands should carefully consider how it works with its ambassadors in the future, including how any “organic” communications should be labelled.
YouTube pre-roll ad
The ruling is interesting as PLT argued that it was empowering women but the ASA concluded that the ad objectified women. The difference in these interpretations of the ad demonstrates the challenges that brands face when dealing with products and themes that may be perceived differently depending on the audience.
