Love Island Star Molly Mae Has Instagram Post Banned After Breaching ASA rules

Love Island Star Molly Mae Has Instagram Post Banned for Breaching ASA rules

Image ASA/Molly Mae Instagram

A ruling from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) today has banned an instagram ad posted by former Love Islander and social media influencer Molly Mae after it received a complaint that challenged whether the post ‘was obviously identifiable as a marketing communication.’

The Instagram post in question appeared on @mollymaehague instagram page, seen on 26 September 2019, and featured an image of Molly Mae wearing a coat, with the caption below the image “A/W, I’m ready” with @prettylittlething tagged - the official Instagram account for Pretty Little Thing.

Responding to the complaint, the UK fashion retailer Pretty Little Thing confirmed that Ms Hague was a brand ambassador for Pretty Little Thing (PLT) and maintained that the post was an 'organic post' and did not fall within the remit of their contractual agreement. They provided some examples of similar ‘organic’ feed posts created by Ms Hague which they said were posted prior to the contractual agreement between PLT and Ms Hague that "demonstrated that she had a genuine interest in the PLT brand.”

In 2019, shortly after her appearance on the dating show Love Island Ms Hague landed a £500,000 deal to become a brand ambassador for UK based clothing retailer PrettyLittleThing. In acknowledgement of the complaint, The PLT brand argued that they did not have any prior knowledge that the post would be posted or that they had any control over it. Via her agent, Ms Hague reiterated that the post was not an ad but an organic feed post and she had tagged @prettylittlething in the post as she was wearing one of their products.

Ruling

However the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) noted that Ms Hague had a financial relationship with PLT as their brand ambassador and because the post featured her wearing a PLT product which was also tagged to PLT’s Instagram account - they considered that PLT had a level of control of the post that was sufficient for it to fall within the remit of the CAP Code.

The advertising watchdog also noted that at the time the ad was seen, the ‘bio’ field on Ms Hague’s Instagram profile stated “Ambassador @prettylittlething” - because of that, they acknowledged that since this text had been included on her Instagram profile that those (3.6 million) who had chosen to follow Ms Hague’s Instagram account might be aware that there was a commercial relationship between Ms Hague and PLT. Still they went onto consider that because the text in an Instagram bio, was only likely to be seen a limited number of times by followers and not when people were viewing individual posts that this limited the effectiveness in disclosing that posts were advertising.

For those reasons the advertising watchdog concluded that in the absence of a clear identifier, such as “#ad”, the post was not obviously identifiable as a marketing communication and was therefore in breach of the CAP Code covering recognition of marketing communications. The ASA has warned the clothing retailer and Ms Hague that the ad must not appear in the form complained of and to ensure that their ads are obviously identifiable as marketing communications by including clear identifiers such as #ad.

The ASA has been keen to crack down on misleading influencer posts. According to the CAP code; marketing communications must be obviously identifiable as such, and must not falsely claim or imply that the marketer is acting as a consumer. If not obvious from the context - marketing communications must make clear their commercial intent for example, by using terms like "advertisement feature" (See CAP Code Edition 12 rule 2.1, 2.3 and 2.4)

Last year the ad watchdog teamed up with ITV to create a "cheat sheet" to help Love Island contestants safely navigate the advertising rules surrounding social media, which apply to all influencers and celebrities.

Comment

With Love Islanders frequently landing big sponsorship deals with brands after they leave the villa - it's unlikely that this will be the last ruling of it's kind.

Deals

In 2019 Amber Gill became brand ambassador for MissPap in a deal worth millions of pounds with the launch of her first clothing line. Maura Higgins and India Reynolds both became brand ambassadors for online fashion giant Boohoo while Ovie Soko joined ASOS as a model and Curtis Prichard signed a deal with high street fashion retailer Debenhams - the first of its kind. With a new show on the horizon, the recent ASA ruling comes as timely warning for Love Island hopefuls to get up to speed with ASA regulations.