Don’t do a Steven Bartlett: why brands should avoid paid ad loopholes

Dragon’s Den star Steven Bartlett had a slap on the wrist last month after featuring in adverts for health brands Huel and Zoe. Seemingly harmless, but the entrepreneur didn’t disclose that he’s an investor in both products. As is becoming more frequent, it wasn’t long before The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) caught on and banned both adverts for misleading customers.

While, of course, both the companies and Bartlett himself should know better, it’s clear that influencers and brands are exploring more subtle forms of advertising to appear more authentic. It makes sense, right? With a demand for more and more authenticity, and with users scrolling past content faster than you can say ASA, you need to make ads work.

I’m looking into the loopholes in social media advertising and uncovering the truth of what’s acceptable, what isn’t and, realistically, the most effective way to make your ad spend work for you.

What are these loopholes?

For a while now, creators on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube have had to be transparent when collaborating with brands - every promotional ad needs to be labeled as such. But Bartlett found a way to promote companies he has stock in, in a way that may not be obvious to the average consumer.

One thing we’re seeing an increase in is self-promotion (and rightly so). With more and more influencers and brands competing for online recognition, building their following is crucial to success. Recently, we’ve seen lots of ‘PR Stunts’ where brands or creators partner with media pages on a social channel, to promote a story or service to drive traffic to the creator’s original page.”?

Accounts such as Lad Bible, The Numbers Game and I’m Just Bait report on news and post success stories about brands or individuals. Often the stories appear organic, and we’ve even seen these pages advertise competitions for brands, but there’s generally no proper ad disclosure. And while there’s no way of knowing for sure if they’re being paid, it’s usually pretty obvious.?

Why these accounts have fallen under the radar

These media pages are faceless accounts which pose less of a risk. Their identity is concealed, so they’re more protected from public backlash. There is no “one person” or “brand” to expose, so to speak. And because they are news based channels, any ad content can be seamlessly integrated into the feed.?

To quote an iconic social trend - nobody’s gonna know… how would they know?

So is the ASA coming for these kinds of promotions? Not yet. We suspect that the ASA may initially focus on individual public figures because they’re easier to hold accountable. It’s clear that Steven Bartlett messed up, so he faces the repercussions. It can also be considerably harder to spot this kind of faceless content.

But this doesn’t mean brands or influencers should take any chances, or become complacent. While drawing in more customers with seemingly authentic content may seem tempting, the potential consequences are not worth it.?

The ASA is clamping down, and the Bartlett, Huel, and Zoe incident should serve as a warning to brands or creators thinking of blurring the lines around ad disclosure. If brands want to promote themselves with these faceless accounts, they need to make it obvious that the content is an ad.

Just because the ASA isn’t picking up on media pages now, we suspect they will as the rules tighten. These loopholes will become like ads on TikTok or Instagram - stuff you just can't get around. The ASA will try and come for you.”

ASA regulations: what brands and creators need to know?

Brands must be familiar with the ASA regulations. They state that “Advertisement features should be designed and presented in a way that makes them stand out from the surrounding content so that it’s easy for consumers to recognise what is and isn’t advertising.”

The ASA’s Influencers’ guide to making clear that ads are ads covers all the points that brands and influencers need to follow. Some key rules are:

• Influencers must disclose content as ads if they’ve received payment or any other incentive from a brand, or if they are personally or commercially connected to the brand.
• Influencers must disclose any affiliate marketing arrangements where they receive commissions.
• The clearest way to do this is to include a clear and prominent ‘AD’ label upfront on all content.
• Both brands and influencers are responsible for ensuring that the content follows the rules.

Brands don’t need loopholes to create authentic content

It’s not worth a brand losing integrity and trust with their customers.?

There is still a stigma around paid adverts, and often brands worry that customers will see the ‘AD’ label and immediately scroll past. But trying to find loopholes is not the answer, at least not in the long-term.?

There are ways of creating authentic, scroll-stopping influencer-led content without having to cheat the system.?

1. Be relevant

If a brand’s content is relevant to the consumer’s world, they will be interested. That means being a part of the right conversations in the right niches and, crucially, at the right time. That also does not mean you have to be talking just about your industry. Think about the audience's adjacent interests and tap into these conversations too.?

1. Time it right

If you get on the bandwagon too late, it’s not worth being on it at all. Jumping on trends before they blow up will help any brand achieve higher profit and significant cut-through in an already oversaturated landscape. Being a part of these conversations with the right ads/influencer content delivered at pace will be more powerful than any loophole you could potentially find.?

1. The perfect influencers

Matching with the right creators will transform your ad campaigns. For one of our clients, we collaborated with a comedy creator, known for his parody videos, designed to make you laugh, relate, and often cringe created a video that, although was still an ad, felt authentic and relatable. One Instagram user commented, “I usually skip past ADs but not your ones'

”Our client has a history of successful campaigns and very easily could have taken the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach. But they took a risk and went against the norms of their industry. It just goes to show that if you create campaigns that actually align with your audience and challenge the status quo, you really shouldn’t worry that ‘AD’ is in the caption.

Break the mold, not your brand’s reputation

No matter what loopholes exist, risking your brand’s reputation is just not worth it.?

Brands need to keep this front of mind when building out their strategies. A campaign with the word ‘AD’ on, may feel less authentic, but it’s a whole lot less damaging than getting burnt by the ASA. The point is there are so many more ways you can bring eye-catching, genuinely valuable content to your audience without resorting to these kinds of PR stunts.?

With the right data, knowledge and creative strategies you can literally change the way your audience feels about ads and see the results in real time.?

We can show you how. To make sure your brand is doing all the right things, talk to us. We have the expertise and proprietary tech tools to help you build out influencer strategies that will authentically promote your brand. No loopholes needed.

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