Updates to the Influencer Marketing Regulations: Everything You Need to Know
Influencer marketing has evolved rapidly over recent years. It is now a mainstream form of online marketing adopted by millions of brands across the world, used to influence purchasing decisions and raise brand awareness and loyalty with the consumer.
If there’s anything that is clear in our social-media-driven world, the brands that have the most successful online presence are the ones that are creating authentic, genuine, user-generated content, and doing so not only in-house, but by working with influencers and creators making waves in their niche. But there are rules both brands, influencers and creators need to play by to work within this space… and those are ever-evolving.
The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) in partnership with the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), produced ‘Influencer Guidelines’. These identify how brands can work with influencers and creators, as well as how those influencers should be labelling content that has resulted from a gifted experience or paid partnership with a brand.
Let’s unpack what’s changed in the last few months…
What constitutes an influencer payment?
According to the regulations, any post featuring a brand which has previously been paid for or gifted to the influencer by a brand is deemed as advertising. This applies whether it is a product, experience, service or holiday.
As such, this must be labelled adequately or creators and brands alike risk being subject to consumer protection law.
‘Payment’ in the eyes of the regulators, does not just mean transfer of monies – which is where brands playing in this space need to listen up. In their eyes, payment includes:
- Money transferred from brand to influencer.
- Gifted products or experiences
- Loaned products
- Gifted services
- Products or services which have been sent to the influencer, without them making a direct request to the brand.
What information must an influencer disclose?
As influencer marketing has developed, so too has the way in which influencers and brands label their relationships. Reciprocal relationships between the brand and influencers must be accurately disclosed; this can include ambassadorships, affiliate networks, press trips/gifted stays, or even commission-based discount codes.
Should influencers and brands negate doing this, they run the risk of scrutiny which could come with hefty fines – so transparency is key.
Following a redraft of the influencer guidelines released in March this year, influencers must:
- Disclose if and how they are personally linked to a business (e.g., if it is owned by a friend or family member).
- Disclose their involvement in the operating of a business (e..g, if they are an owner, founder, stakeholder, employee or ambassador).
- Label all content that has derived from a brand collaboration as an ad – whether paid, unpaid or gifted.
- Disclose previous associations and partnerships with a brand where content features products or experiences previously gifted or paid for.
How to Clearly Advertise Paid Promotions and Partnerships
The updated guidelines strongly emphasise that the ‘Ad’ label must be displayed prominently and clearly, separate from any other content.
This is where brands and influencers should tune in – you play a risky game if you bury the disclosure at the end of your copy, caption, within the comments or just listed as a hashtag. We recommend brining that disclosure to the head of your post caption, and to ensure it is clearly displayed where temporary media such as IG Stories are involved.
By all means, still include a #ad hashtag, but only if the content is labelled clearly.
Creators are free to elaborate on the disclosure, but ‘ad’ must be displayed in a separate paragraph or entity. For example, ‘Ad – Press Invite’.
Phrasing such as ad, advert, advertisement, advertising, and advertising feature are all considered to be the appropriate way to label content following the update to the regulations
Take note… simply labelling your work as ‘gifted’, ‘sponsored’, or ‘thanks to’ is no longer a sufficient way to acknowledge a partnership.
How does this impact brands resharing & repurposing content from influencer partnerships?
Under the new regulations brands who chose to share the content of the influencers and creators they have worked with must also be efficient in labelling the content clearly as an ‘Ad’ to avoid any confusion for the consumer.
IG Stories that are a reshare of a grid image or reel following a paid partnership or gifted opportunity must also continue to be highlighted as an ‘Ad’, regardless of how many times the content is shared or how long after the partnership it is shared.
What about in-bio disclosures of brand partnerships?
Relying on an in-bio disclosure is no longer acceptable.
The new regulations are clear on the fact that consumers need to know up front whether an influencer is working with a brand, whether as a one-off collaboration or as a long-term ambassadorship or as part of a wider brand partnership or campaign.
Putting this information in their bio is not sufficient in demonstrating the partnership; and relying solely on this does not guarantee the consumer will look at the bio before viewing the content.
Once again, we are being reminded that the only way to guarantee you are labelling your content correctly, is by doing so clearly with the ‘Ad’ disclosure featured within each piece of content.
Why is understanding the guidelines crucial now?
An investigation conducted in 2020 found that only 35% of sponsored influencer posts were clearly signposted as advertising. As a result, regulators such as the ASA are now pushing for greater regulatory controls which will lead to more serious consequences for influencers, creators and brands if not readily and hastily adopted as best practice.
These consequences have recently come in the form of:
- Statutory action by the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA), resulting in fines.
- Publicly listing offending influencers and creators as people whom consumers cannot trust.
- Shaming brands, influencers and creators deemed as repeat offenders across Google and Facebook advertising.
- Spot checks on brands, influencers and creators who are repeat offenders.
And the consequences are only likely to get more severe as the rules are refreshed.
Given that influencer marketing dominates many strategies for brands around the globe, it is more important than ever that brands and their influencer partners alike are aware of the requirements and consequences of insufficiently labelling content.
Key Takeaways
The resounding message is that you should not be leaving any room for ambiguity.
Transparency is this year’s buzzword. And just like the old saying goes – “It’s better to be safe than sorry” – so don’t allow for any gaps in your labelling to ensure clarity for the consumer.
So what should PR’s and Marketers do next? It’s time to update your clients, and immediately adopt clear instruction on the labelling of content derived from collaborations and partnerships when communicating with influencers and creators.
PR’s worth their salt will do their due diligence on pending content, and check their collaborations are retrospectively in line with the regulations, as of March 2023.
It is our job as PR’s and Marketers to communicate the latest regulations, and do our best to ensure they are understood and adopted by the brands, influencers and creators we work with to avoid any problems further down the road.
You can read the full Influencers’ Guide to Making Clear that Ads are Ads here.
