Ad description
A TikTok video on Stephanie Vavron’s account and seen in November 2023 featured a video of Stephanie Vavron talking about her upcoming day and applying makeup. It began with her holding up a black BPerfect bag and she said, “Get ready with me using my BPerfect collab … I am in Glasgow and I am literally waiting to go into the Glasgow store … By the way Perfection primer is, everyone knows, my favourite. So a little bit of Perfection primer in champagne glow … and then I go in with my chroma … Anyway today I am a busy, busy girl. I got to film some content in BPerfect. I might actually do a live in BPerfect in the store. Like talking through some of the products and like, we will see what happens, we are kind of winging it today …” She was then shown holding a bottle of The Cheek, liquid blusher and said, “Now we are going on with The Cheek on my cheeks. This is also in my wee bundle …” She applied a spray to her face and said, “I have just set with this. This is in the box.”
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the ad was obviously identifiable as a marketing communication and whether its commercial intent was clear.
Response
BPerfect Ltd did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries.Stephanie Vavron’s management said that the video had been made in response to a user’s comment and so it had not been planned or paid for. They explained that all the products being used in the video were incorporated organically.
They said Stephanie Vavron did not receive any profits from the sale of the collaboration with BPerfect. The only exception was affiliate links, labelled on separate videos as “Commission paid”, where she would have received a percentage of sales through the TikTok shop.
Assessment
The ASA was concerned by BPerfect’s lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
Upheld
The CAP Code stated that marketing communications must be obviously identifiable as such, and that they must make clear their commercial intent if that was not obvious from the context.
The video featured a number of BPerfect products and a BPerfect Cosmetics bag held by Stephanie Vavron. She described the BPerfect products in the video collectively as her, “BPerfect collab” and her “wee bundle”. The ASA noted Stephanie Vavron’s response that with the exception of affiliate links found in separate videos, she received no payment for the collaboration with BPerfect, including the specific video in the ad, which she had explained was posted with no editorial control from BPerfect. However, in the video Stephanie Vavron acknowledged she had collaborated with BPerfect, which was emphasised later in the video when she stated that she would be going to the Glasgow BPerfect store to discuss the products, and that meant she had a commercial relationship with the brand, who had not responded to contradict that position. We further understood that Stephanie Vavron had appeared on the BPerfect TikTok page discussing the bundle and it was described in the description of that video as, “Stephanie Vavron X BPerfect Bundle. This bundle is exclusive to our Glasgow store …” Therefore, because of that commercial relationship and that the content of the video was promoting BPerfect products, it was directly connected to the supply of goods; we concluded it was a marketing communication which fell within the ASA's remit.
The Code stated that ads had to be identifiable as marketing communications and must be obviously identifiable as such. We considered the video to be insufficiently distinguishable from the rest of Stephanie Vavron’s TikTok content given that it lacked any clear content or context that made clear it was advertising. Further, although we noted that some of Stephanie Vavron’s followers would be aware of her collaboration with BPerfect and she did state in the video she had a “collab” with BPerfect, we considered that it was not sufficiently clear from that terminology and the video itself that she was promoting her own product with BPerfect. Therefore, it would not be clear to TikTok users, particularly to those new to TikTok, that the video concerned was a marketing communication.
For these reasons, we considered the video was not obviously identifiable as a marketing communication and breached the Code.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 2.1 and 2.3 (Recognition of marketing communications).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told BPerfect Ltd and Stephanie Vavron to ensure that they made clear the commercial intent of their posts in future, for example by including a clear and prominent identifier on their social media posts such as #ad. We referred BPerfect Ltd to CAP’s compliance team.
