Speaking at the ASA this week

[AmieMumsnet]

Hello all,

The ASA have asked us to speak at a conference they're hosting this week with lots of big wigs from the ASA itself and brands. I'll be covering how we manage relationships with influencers on our network - both commercially and otherwise - and how we ensure the campaigns we work on with influencers are compliant.

Is there anything you guys think should be included?

How influencers using hashtags like ‘PR sample’ or ‘Press sample’ need to be banned. It’s just purposely misleading. How gifted things have to be declared, even if no obligation. If you share it-declare it. Little things like when YouTube videos have ‘AD’ written at the very end of long descriptions, almost certainly as then the AD isn’t visible on the thumbnail.

All these little things erode trust. I look at brands who use influencers less favourably because a lot of influencers are so shady when it comes to advertising that I often feel I’ve been tricked. I like adverts that look like adverts. I don’t want ‘adverts’ that are disguised as ‘A day in life of videos’ and feature products which are raved about but then-mysteriously-are never, ever mentioned by the influencer again.

Hi DonutCone,

thanks for your thoughts on this. The conference was actually a few weeks ago I'm afraid, but we did indeed discuss appropriate ad disclosure, what that looks like and how to enforce it better.

While we can't speak for other agencies, every campaign we work on with influencers requires they clearly disclose the ad 'above the fold' - whatever that may mean for the platform they're on. For instance, it should be in the title of a YouTube video or blog post, or before the '...' on an Instagram caption, so the consumer has the opportunity to choose not to consume that ad before they've really engaged with it.

We know there's still work to be done on this across the board and many of us in the industry are working together to try and improve the standards.