Clampdown on influencers means #collab won’t cut it anymore

The message is getting through to Ireland’s influencers that #collab isn’t going to cut it any more; that social media posts must clearly indicate when the content is, in fact, advertising. And that applies whether the influencers were paid a fee for extolling the benefits of some hair serum or face cream or if that glamorous holiday so lovingly posted cocktail-by-cocktail was a freebie.

Last month, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) wrote to 26 influencers in Ireland across a range of sectors including beauty and fashion, food, entertainment and sport to remind them of their obligations under consumer protection law.

It also wrote to 18 unnamed companies “who represent influencers”.

All were reminded about content labelling and “encouraged to review their social media channels and to take the appropriate action to rectify any issues that they identified”.

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It sounds a softly, softly approach, more carrot than stick – especially as the CCPC is not naming the people or companies involved – but it included the reminder that the authority has a range of enforcement powers to secure compliance right up to prohibition orders and prosecution.

The letters are a result of evidence gathered during an EU-wide sweep (including European Economic Area states Norway and Iceland) by the European Commission and national consumer protection authorities which examined the posts of 576 influencers on big social media platforms.

Most were active on several platforms: 572 had posts on Instagram, 334 on TikTok, 224 on YouTube, 202 on Facebook, 82 on X, 52 on Snapchat, and 28 on Twitch.

The sweep found that nearly all (97 per cent) of these influencers posted commercial content but only one in five systematically indicated that their content was advertising.

Analysis of the posts also revealed that more than a fifth of the influencers were considered to be promoting unhealthy or hazardous activities without proper health and safety warnings, such as certain aesthetic procedures or gambling.

As a result of the sweep, 358 influencers were earmarked for further investigation with each national authority tasked with contacting those in their jurisdictions directly, hence the letters arriving to the 26 Irish influencers in March.

The CCPC won’t say which aspect of consumer protection rules the Irish influencers were found to be breaking, whether it was mostly the mis- or non-labelling of commercial content, the pushing of potentially harmful goods and services – or both.

The message is also getting through to consumers who since last November have been able to complain to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about influencers they consider to be breaching the advertising code.

If influencers think social media scrollers are easily fooled or too passive to bother complaining, they’re very wrong.

Between November 17th last and the end of March, the regulator received 2,959 submissions, with “a significant number” regarding incorrect disclosure of commercial content on social media.

Contact was then made by the advertising watchdog with a number of influencers seeking future compliance. Some were the subject of formal investigation and adjudication, meaning they faced the same procedures that advertising on radio, TV and print have been put through for decades by the watchdog following consumer complaints.

Two cases before the ASA’s compliance committee earlier this year featuring relatively high-profile Irish influencers will doubtless serve as a warning to the micro- and nano-influencers jockeying for attention in this crowded space.

RTÉ 2FM presenter Laura Fox’s posts about her experience of wearing an orthodontics product and providing advice to prospective users were the subject of a complaint. Despite the posts including the hashtag “#collab”, the complainant said it was not clear it was a marketing communication and the ASA agreed.

Brands steer away from trouble, avoiding any size of crisis. Moving spend into moderated channels de-risks their ad spend

—  Ian McGrath - Dentsu Ireland

During the adjudication process, Fox’s agency said she had received the treatment for free and thought it sufficient to mark the content as #collab in line with others in the industry. Apologising on her behalf, her agency said it would amend the posts to use “#ad” and “#sponsor”.

Another complaint that came before the advertising watchdog concerned Instagram posts, stories and reels featuring cars and deals from Volkswagen Wexford posted by DJ Phil Cawley, a presenter on South East radio. The complainant considered the content to be misleading as it had not disclosed that Cawley was a brand ambassador for the car dealership.

The complaint was upheld with the ASA saying that where an influencer was sponsored by a brand, any content that referenced the brand, should be tagged appropriately, for example, by #brandambassador or similar to remove any ambiguity.

And for advertisers, increased regulatory scrutiny on influencers and the findings of that European report that the vast majority of those surveyed ignore consumer protection rules could be a red flag that makes them wary – or at least more vigilant when considering an advertising channel that already offers challenges, being overcrowded and difficult to measure.

As Ian McGrath, chief operations officer at Dentsu Ireland, puts it: “Brands steer away from trouble, avoiding any size of crisis. Moving spend into moderated channels de-risks their ad spend.”

Still, the ability of social media influencers to directly connect with an audience in a fragmented media landscape is appealing.

“People who carry influence for a brand can vary but the core idea of amplification via authentic people-first creative is key in any social strategy,” says Stephen Murphy of Dublin agency Wolfgang Digital. With authenticity the prize in communication, he notes that “new rules and regulations around advertising compliance should add to the transparency for influencer marketing, but this compliance may put a question on how genuine the content is if it is labelled with a big #AD in it”.