British influencer and entrepreneur Grace Beverly had 6 posts about her own brand, TALA, banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (the ASA) for failing to disclose that the posts were #ads. The ASA is the United Kingdom’s advertising regulator and oversees advertisements to make sure they are compliant with the UK advertising codes. The ASA has a similar role to the FTC in the United States and each agency has posted guidelines for influencers to follow when posting sponsored content (See here for the ASA’s guidelines and here for the FTC’s guidelines).

What distinguishes this case from a standard brand deal/sponsored content post is that Beverly is the founder and owner of the brand TALA. The ASA received fifty-one complaints that the posts were not compliant since they lacked any sort of advertising disclosure. Representatives for Beverly argued that “such a disclaimer would itself have made the ads misleading, as it would have led consumers to think that rather than being the founder or owner of the TALA business, Ms. Beverley was an arm’s length influencer who had no commercial interest in the business, and was merely promoting goods
because she was being paid to do so”.

This is a compelling argument, but unfortunately did not persuade the ASA. They considered that the posts were made “in her capacity as an employee of the brand, which were directly connected with TALA’s products” and “constituted marketing communications in non-paid-for space, under the control of TALA”, meaning that both Beverly and TALA would have been responsible to disclose the posts as advertisements. The ASA did acknowledge that Beverly’s followers would most likely know that she is the founder of TALA, but users who viewed the post in an algorithm or on other pages would not necessarily know.

While this decision is only precedential in the UK, content creators and influencers in the US who have founded or own stakes in brands should disclose their “material relationship” with such brands and provide proper disclosures that their posts are paid advertisements.