ASA Guidelines For Influencers
ASA published an influencers guide to ad disclosure last Friday (28th September 2018), which was desperately needed as the lines with influencer advertisements have definitely been blurred in the past. We’ve created a breakdown of key takeaways from their guide to help you make sense of it all.
What counts as an ad and falls under the rules in the CAP code?
- Paid for and sponsored/promoted posts
- Posting about your own products/services e.g. products you sell/events you are running, even if this is from your personal social channels.
- Giveaways/prize draws
- Affiliate links/discount codes (any link to a brand that sale that can be tracked back to your content)
How to make ads clear:
Consumers must be able to identify that something is an ad without having to interact with it.
ASA recommends the use of the following labels when disclosing ads:
- Ad
- Advert
- Advertising
- Advertisement
They recommend staying away from less clear terms such as:
- Spon/Sp
- In association with
- Thanks to [brand] for making this possible
- Only @ mentioning the brand
The label also has to be positioned in an obvious place. ASA recommend at the beginning but as long as it is placed before viewers having to click ‘see more’ is acceptable.
Consequences if you don’t comply:
The ASA will investigate the case with both you and the brand and if it doesn’t meet the guidelines you’ll be asked to change or remove it along with any other similar content. CAP’s Compliance Team will be in touch if you do not change/remove the post and they can apply sanctions if necessary.
ZINE’s research:
In our research for our Influencer Marketing: Science, Strategy & Success 2018 Report we surveyed 1,000 influencers and 1,300 consumers to understand how influencer marketing campaigns are being executed and how consumers perceive sponsored posts.
We found that 61% of consumers don’t even look to see if a post is sponsored but 84% of consumers agree that sponsored posts should be marked as such.
Disclosure on ZINE:
All influencers on ZINE are required to disclose sponsored post with #ad clearly before the fold.
Useful Resources:
ASA: An Influencers Guide to making clear that ads are ads
ASA: Affiliate Marketing
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Lucy Barker
I’m Influencer Marketing Executive here at ZINE, where I manage communications of over 50,000 influencers. I’m a self-confessed coffee and shopping addict that’s happiest when in the sun.
