A complaint against Pippa O’Connor for publishing about her beauty brand, Poco Beauty, on Instagram without identifying the posts as advertisements has been upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority.
The adverts published on the influencer’s Instagram story featured products from the Poco Beauty range, and one image from the story included the label ‘Own Brand’ in the top-right corner.
Other images from the story included the company tag ‘@pocobeautyofficial’ in the bottom left-hand corner, but the complainant did not consider that the images had been identified correctly as advertising material with the #ad hashtag.
They said that none of the other images had been identified as advertising material, and therefore, viewers may not have been aware that what they were viewing was advertising material or that O’Connor was the owner of the brand.
The complainant considered that overall, it was very misleading and frustrating when social media posts which were marketing communications were not identified correctly.
In response, the …